the heart of the matter...

Yes, the refinancing is key, but key to the refinancing is the now back to annual price re-set for the CapitalSmart MRSA which will take effect July 1, 2024.  

Without enough catch-up in pricing gains and thus free cash flow, AMA will not be able to refinance without enduring punitive terms.

The legal case against Suncorp is actually quite valid, because everyone here is forgetting that it's not just a customer / service provider relationship.  When Suncorp took AMA's $400 mil. back in late 2019, they also retained 10% of the CapitalSmart JV.   https://www.suncorpgroup.com.au/announcements-pdf/1251328

That means Suncorp owes a fiduciary duty to that JV.   That is completely different from any other insurance company's relationship to any other collision repair provider.  It demands a different standard of behavior.  That is what is being missed by everyone here.

In the middle of the COVID chaos (March / April 2020), in secret and undisclosed to AMA's shareholders, Suncorp somehow got AMA to let them out of the contract for which AMA had just paid them $400 mil., and replacing it with a 3-year fixed-price abomination.   That was a massive breach of Suncorp's fiduciary duty to the JV and an act of bad faith and outright fraud.  The legal doctrine of unconscionnability means the undoing of the original contract is voidable.

Suncorp's fiduciary duty to their own shareholders does not absolve them or release them from their fiduciary duty to the JV.Suncorp has quite literally stolen $400 mil. (and more) from AMA.  And until Suncorp's Steve Johnston and consumer insurance head Lisa Harrison are made to bear the consequences of this massive betrayal, it will continue...

Under UCC § 2-302(1),²¹

f the court as a matter of law finds the contract or any clause of the contract to have been unconscionable at the time it was made the court may refuse to enforce the contract, or it may enforce the remainder of the contract without the unconscionable clause, or it may so limit the application of any unconscionable clause as to avoid any unconscionable result.

Thus, under UCC § 2-302(1), an unconscionable contract is voidable.²²

An unconscionable contract is one which “is so grossly unreasonable or unconscionable in the light of the mores and business practices of the time and place as to be unenforceable according to its literal terms”.²³ In other words, an unconscionable bargain is one that “no person in his or her senses and not under delusion would make on the one hand, and as no honest and fair person would accept on the other”.²⁴

The gravamen of an unconscionable contract is the “absence of meaningful choice on the part of one of the parties together with contract terms which are unreasonably favorable to the other party.²⁵ Whether a contract is unconscionable requires an examination of the contract formation process so as to determine the absence of meaningful choice.²⁶ To that end, to determine the absence of meaningful choice, courts focus on “the size and commercial setting of the transaction, whether deceptive or high-pressured tactics were employed, the use of fine print in the contract, the experience and education of the party claiming unconscionability, and whether there was disparity in bargaining power”.²⁷

https://fhnylaw.com/the-doctrine-of-unconscionability-and-fraudulent-inducement/#:~:text=Thus%2C%20under%20UCC%20%C2%A7%202,an%20unconscionable%20contract%20is%20voidable.&text=An%20unconscionable%20contract%20is%20one,according%20to%20its%20literal%20terms%E2%80%9D.