The Court held that s 418A of the Corporations Act authorises declarations that a receiver's appointment is 'not invalid' on specified grounds, rather than unqualified declarations of validity, because the statutory text ties the declaratory power to the specific grounds giving rise to doubt. An unqualified declaration of validity, if made, is best characterised as an exercise of the court's general declaratory jurisdiction rather than s 418A. On the substantive question, the Court held that a step-in clause in a master security trust deed (cl 7.4) was effective to authorise a voting secured creditor — who was not a party to the deed — to appoint receivers over trust collateral where the security trustee had rejected the proffered indemnity, without needing to resolve whether the mechanism operated as agency, conferral of a separate power, or trust of a chose in action.
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