People who cannot be company officeholders

Bankrupt or insolvent

You cannot be a company officeholder if you are:

• currently bankrupt, or
• covered by a personal insolvency agreement under the Bankruptcy Act 1966.

Convicted of an offence

You cannot be a company officeholder if you have been convicted of some types of offence. These include:

• fraud or other offences involving dishonesty
• breaking your obligations as a company officeholder
• offences that involve acting against the interests of a company.

You will once again be eligible to be a company officeholder 5 years after the day you were:

• convicted, if you did not go to prison
• released from prison.

Disqualified by ASIC from managing corporations

We may disqualify a director from managing corporations for up to 5 years in the following cases. In the last 7 years the director has been an officer of 2 or more companies:

• that have gone into liquidation and paid creditors less than 50 cents in the dollar
• that relied on the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme to pay employee entitlements.

For more information, see:

Information Sheet 42 Insolvency for directors (INFO 42).

Notifying ASIC of disqualified officeholders

A current officeholder who is convicted of the relevant offence or declared bankrupt is automatically disqualified.

The company must remove them as an officeholder and notify ASIC within 28 days.

The disqualified person due to bankruptcy or personal insolvency agreement should also notify ASIC immediately. Do this by lodging:

Form 296 Notice of disqualification from managing a corporation