Jannie,I am not an expert on corporations law or ASX matters but...

Jannie,

I am not an expert on corporations law or ASX matters but I did some research on the ASX website and turned up a reference to Continuous Disclosure -http://www.asx.com.au/ListingRules/chapters/Chapter03.pdf

If you look up that reference you will find the following note under Rule 3.1 -

"Once an entity becomes aware of any information concerning it that a reasonable person would expect to have a material effect on the price or value of the entity's securities, the entity must immediatly tell ASX that information".

There is a sub note to the rule which refers to Section 677 of the Corporations Act which defines material effect on price or value for the purposes of Sections 674 and 675.

A list of examples of "information" of which an entity may become aware and which may invoke this rule are also shown and which includes the following -

"The appointment of a receiver, manager, liquidator or administrator in respect of any loan, trade credit, trade debt, borrowing or securities held by it or any of its child entities".

To me that sounds like the company would have to notify the ASX immediately it became insolvent as that would affect the share price unless the company was already in trading halt. But anyone would expect the ASX to proceed to delist the company at the stage that insolvancy advice was received from the company. Maybe there would be an announcement for investors benefit but my experience has been that shareholders are not necessarily informed as promptly as some would like (T.I.C and no lol).

As far as 2 years for the USA banking debacle to be cleaned up is concerned, yesterday's news of $200B for a bailout might help to some extent to provide some credit flow.