Search

Objectives To evaluate the relationships between the athlete distribution of team performance indicators and quarter outcome in elite women’s Australian Rules football matches. Design Retrospective longitudinal cohort analysis. Methods Thirteen performance indicators were obtained from 56 matches across the 2017 and 2018 Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW) seasons. Absolute and relative values of 13 performance indicators were obtained for each athlete, in each quarter of all matches. Eleven features were further extracted for each performance indicator, resulting in a total of 169 features. Generalised estimating equations (GEE) and regression decision trees were run across the different feature sets and dependent variables, resulting in 22 separate models. Results The GEE algorithm produced slightly lower mean absolute errors across all dependent variables and feature sets comparative to the regression decision tree models. Quarter outcome was more accurately explained when considered as total points scored comparative to quarter score margin. Team differential and the 75th percentile of individual athlete Inside 50s were the strongest features included in the models. Conclusions Modelling performance statistics by quarter outcomes provides specific practical information for in-game tactics and coaching in relation to athlete performances each quarter. Within the current elite women’s Australian Rules football competition, key high performing individual athletes’ skilled performances within matches contribute more to success rather than a collective team effort.

Background: Management of grade III injuries of the radial collateral ligament (RCL) of the thumb is controversial. These injuries are often treated with early surgery. However, early surgery may not be practical for the professional athlete. We report on the outcome of delayed primary repair of chronic RCL injuries without the use of tendon grafts or tendon transfers. Methods: Twelve elite professional athletes with 15 soft tissue RCL injuries who underwent delayed surgery (greater than 6 weeks) were included in this study. Athletes were managed with splinting and ongoing play during the sporting season, and underwent surgery at the conclusion of the season. Mean duration from injury to surgery was 5 months. Mean follow-up was 4.2 years after surgery. Patient-report outcome measures including pain, satisfaction rating, and disability of the arm, shoulder and hand (DASH) scores were collected. Examination findings including range of motion, laxity, and grip and pinch strength were also measured. Return-to-play data were collected for all athletes. Results: The RCL was able to be primarily repaired with suture anchors in all cases. All twelve patients were able to return to competitive play at the same pre-injury professional level. Post-operative joint function such as range of motion and laxity were comparable to the unaffected contralateral side, as were grip and lateral pinch strengths. Tip-pinch strength is lower compared to the unaffected side, but is comparable to age and sex-matched reference group. Conclusions: Delayed primary repair of the RCL is a viable option and results in satisfactory long-term outcomes. This option may be more preferable to the professional athlete who wishes to avoid surgery during the sporting season.

This note is written by way of an addendum to the author's article on the extra-territorial scope of the stay imposed in an English administration which was published in this journal last year.1 In that article, it was argued that the stay imposed in an English administration should be treated by the English courts as applying without territorial limitation but that the courts should nonetheless grant leave to proceed in other jurisdictions in any case where there is no sufficient connection with England. The purpose of this note is to reconsider the issue in the light of the decision of the Privy Council in Stichting Shell Pensioenfonds v Krys2 on anti-suit injunctions, where judgement was given some months after publication of the original article. It is suggested that the decision in Shell as to the circumstances in which an anti-suit injunction will be granted has significantly narrowed the issue but that extra-territoriality would nonetheless still be a desirable development.

An office-holder cannot discharge his functions without a full understanding of the affairs, business, and property of the company. However, a significant prior professional relationship is regarded as posing a clear threat to the objectivity of an insolvency practitioner such as to make it inappropriate to accept appointment as an office-holder in insolvency proceedings relating to the company. The requirement for an office-holder to be independent of the company therefore means that he may have little or even none of the requisite knowledge prior to his appointment.

As Nicholls LJ said in Re Atlantic Computer Systems Plc: The basic object of the winding up process, in the case of an insolvent company, is to achieve an equal distribution of the company’s assets among the unsecured creditors.

The concept of insolvency proceedings as a class remedy is one consequence of the collective nature of insolvency proceedings under the Act. It explains the need for creditors’ rights to be exercised in accordance with the purposes of the legislation. The concept is a judicial construct which, although a logical progression from the statutory rules, is not mentioned in the legislation itself.

Consistently with it being a terminal insolvency procedure, distribution of the insolvent estate amongst the company’s creditors (and members in the event of a surplus) is the principal function of a liquidation. Administration is not directly comparable in this respect. Where administration is used for the purposes of rescue or restructuring, there may be no need for the administrator to make distributions but, on the other hand, it may be a ‘liquidating’ or ‘distributing’ administration where the wider powers of an administrator are used to achieve a better result for creditors than that achievable in liquidation. As explained in Chapter 8, the latter form of administration was facilitated by the Enterprise Act remodelling of the administration provisions of the Act and it is now common for an administrator with realizations available for distribution to creditors to use his own powers in that respect instead of putting the company into liquidation. The treatment of the claims of pre-proceeding creditors is the same whether distributions to them are made by an administrator exercising his own powers or by a liquidator appointed immediately following an administration.

The insolvent estate is comprised of the property which is the subject matter of an insolvency proceeding. It is important that there is clarity in this respect. If the proceeding is distributive, the estate is the property which will be realized for the benefit of the creditors; if it is reorganizational, the estate is the property which will be protected by any stay and which may be the subject of the reorganization. The Act does not define the insolvent estate for the purposes of its corporate insolvency provisions; the crucial term used by the Act is ‘property’.

In the practice of insolvency law, the usual challenge is to work out the answer to a problem as a matter of general law and then to factor in the consequences of one or more of the parties being insolvent. In cross-border insolvency cases, this exercise can be made considerably more complicated by choice of law issues. Ultimately, cross-border insolvency questions are all questions of private international law which are determined in accordance with specific rules where applicable or otherwise in accordance with general principles. The aims are to recognize properly grounded foreign insolvency proceedings, to act in aid of them where appropriate, to ensure that English proceedings will achieve extra-territorial recognition where necessary, and thereby to achieve fairness for all creditors everywhere by avoiding conflicts and confusions between jurisdictions.

Laws dealing with the problem of debt avoidance were a feature of English law long before the enactment of laws providing for insolvency proceedings. Thus an enactment in 1376, during the reign of Edward III, provided that property given by debtors to friendly third parties remained available to be taken in execution by the debtor’s creditors, whereas the founding statute providing for a bankruptcy law was not enacted until 1542, during the reign of Henry VIII. This illustrates a point which remains equally true today, namely that transaction avoidance overlaps with insolvency law but can go wider. For example section 423, dealing with transactions defrauding creditors, can be invoked by a victim of the transaction even though no insolvency proceedings are taking place.

At one level the title ‘office-holder’ is merely a convenient way generically to refer to the person (liquidator, administrator, or supervisor) who has the conduct of the insolvency proceeding in question. However, there is a burgeoning concept of the office-holder being a person to whom a number of privileges and responsibilities attach regardless of the form of the proceedings in which the appointment has been made.

The ‘court’, for the purposes of the Act and Rules, means the court with jurisdiction to wind up a company. The High Court has jurisdiction to wind up any company registered in England and Wales. The county court has concurrent jurisdiction in respect of any company whose paid up share capital does not exceed £120,000, unless the place which has longest been the registered office of the company during the previous six months is in the London insolvency district.

There is no necessary connection between phoenixism and pre-packing; each can occur without the other but it is the combination of both which attracts most controversy. ‘Phoenixism’ is the term used to describe the re-emergence, after insolvency proceedings, of the same business under the same management. Pre-packing is the process of executing a pre-arranged sale of a business immediately upon the appointment of an administrator. In practice, most pre-packs are sales to connected persons—hence taking these subjects together for the purposes of this book.

Why have insolvency law? The simple answer to that question is that credit is indispensable in a modern free market economy but credit brings with it the possibility of default. The extension of credit in whatever form, and whether in large or small amounts, creates a need for the law to provide remedies to deal with that default when it occurs. The ordinary remedies are private remedies; the creditor obtains and enforces a judgment for its private benefit but sometimes the debtor cannot pay because its liabilities are greater than its means. Insolvency law then provides the method by which the remaining assets are administered in accordance with a predetermined scheme, replacing private competition between creditors with an orderly distribution to all in so far as there are assets to support it.

Insolvency proceedings inevitably entail cost. In addition to the office-holder’s remuneration, there will be a wide range of other expenses—partly arising out of getting in the company’s assets and making such distributions as the proceeds permit but also arising out of discharging compliance obligations. However, an office-holder does not generally have any personal liability for the expenses which he incurs unless he enters into a contract in his personal capacity or incurs costs in the unsuccessful pursuit of litigation brought in his own name.

This book provides a critical examination of modern English corporate insolvency law, in particular the procedures under the Insolvency Act 1986, from both conceptual and functional points of view. It focuses throughout on identifying a rational explanation for the form that the rules and institutions of the modern law take or, where there is no such rational explanation, the history which has resulted in the present position. A central theme of the book is that the nature and fundamental purpose of insolvency proceedings themselves dictate many of the features of English insolvency proceedings. For example, collective execution on behalf of creditors necessitates definition of the insolvent estate and the provision of rules concerning provable debts and transaction avoidance. Many key features of the insolvency procedures are therefore essentially matters of practicality rather than principle, albeit practicalities applied justly and fairly. The book covers the nature and purpose of insolvency law; the procedures; the administration, supervision and regulation of insolvency proceedings; the insolvent estate and transaction avoidance; investigation and wrongdoing by directors; phoenixism and pre-packing; distribution of the insolvent estate; and, lastly, cross-border insolvency. It examines the various principles of insolvency law in the context of practice, drawing upon historical perspectives where appropriate. By explaining how the law takes the form that it does, the book promotes an understanding of the present law and institutions as a whole, and shows how this understanding might inform future developments.

Both outright dishonesty and genuine misfortune are less common than is sometimes supposed; most insolvencies result from a degree of culpable mismanagement. Although the work of office-holders appointed in insolvency proceedings is primarily concerned with the administration of the insolvent estate, examination of the causes of insolvency and the punishment of malpractice are also important. Accordingly, insolvency law includes various provisions by means of which malpractice can be pursued. It is a statement of the obvious that failure to take proper action in respect of malpractice encourages degeneration in attitudes to debt. The treatment of malpractice is therefore central to the wider social and economic purposes of insolvency law.

Insolvency practice is highly regulated. Regulation is needed because, as described in earlier chapters, the day-to-day conduct of insolvency proceedings is entrusted to office-holders and the supervisory jurisdiction exercised by the court is both selective and triggered by application.

Insolvency proceedings, whether of a terminal or a reorganizational nature, are the proceedings which can be invoked by or in respect of a company so as to subject its property and affairs to the rules of insolvency law applicable to the administration of an insolvent estate.

There are currently three forms of corporate insolvency proceeding in English law. Liquidation (whether compulsory or voluntary) is a terminal proceeding designed to realize the assets of the debtor company and distribute the realized value amongst creditors according to their respective priorities, following which the company is dissolved. Administration and company voluntary arrangements (CVA) (not mutually exclusive and sometimes used together) are two different forms of proceeding which are primarily designed to preserve going concerns. Although the three procedures are constituted as standalone procedures under the Act, there is considerable room for movement from one procedure into another in order to achieve an optimal outcome for creditors.

Reference is quite frequently made to the ‘insolvency code’ but this is misleading; there is no codification of English insolvency law which would bear comparison with a civil law code. The term is used colloquially to refer to the general body of insolvency law, covering both personal and corporate insolvency, which derives from a number of different sources. The term is also sometimes used more specifically to refer to the rules dealing with the ranking and priority of creditors.

This article considers the extra-territorial scope of the stay imposed in an English administration and argues that it should be treated by the English courts as applying without territorial limitation but that the courts should nonetheless grant leave to proceed in other jurisdictions in any case where there is no sufficient connection with England. It argues that this solution would be right in principle and that the court is not constrained from adopting such an approach by precedent. Copyright © 2014 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Aims To determine whether an early return to sport in professional Australian Rules Football players after fixation of a non-thumb metacarpal fracture was safe and effective. Patients and Methods A total of 16 patients with a mean age of 25 years (19 to 30) identified as having a non-thumb metacarpal fracture underwent open reduction and internal plate and screw fixation. We compared the players’ professional performance statistics before and after the injury to determine whether there was any deterioration in their post-operative performance. Results Of the 16, 12 sustained their fracture during the season: their mean time to return to unrestricted professional play was two weeks (1 to 5). All except two of the 48 player performance variables showed no reduction in performance post-operatively. Conclusion Our data suggest that professional athletes who sustained a non-thumb metacarpal fracture can safely return to professional play without restriction two weeks after internal fixation. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2017;99-B:1343–7.

Study Design Case series. Introduction This paper describes conservative guidelines for the management of scapho-lunate interosseous ligament (SLIL) injury including fabrication of an orthosis that restricts active wrist movement to the dart-throwers (DTM) plane. Purpose of the Study The dart throwers’ orthosis (DTO) was designed as a response to biomechanical studies suggesting that restraining motion to the DTM would off-load a deficient SLIL. Methods After six weeks of wearing the DTO, the 5 patients in this case series initiated an exercise program that incorporated wrist proprioceptive training and specific muscle strengthening. Discussion The DTO was designed to incorporate controlled movement in order to better integrate the secondary wrist stabilizers in wrists that had a deficient SLIL. The orthosis and the exercise program harnessed proprioceptive influences using active motion within the DTM plane, and stimulated mechanoreceptors so as to enhance stability. Results All patients demonstrated improvement in subjective and objective outcomes including self-reported pain and function. Conclusions Orthotic intervention that controls motion within the DTM, combined with an appropriate proprioceptive rehabilitation program, may provide a viable conservative treatment option for patients with a similar clinical presentation. Level of evidence 4.

In Belmont Park Investments Pty Ltd v BNY Corporate Trustee Services Ltd & Anor, one of the most important cases in English insolvency law in recent years, Lord Collins summarized and differentiated between two fundamental principles of English insolvency law, the anti-deprivation principle and the principle of pari passu distribution.

Objective/Hypothesis: The dart throwers’ motion and its influence on restricting movement at the scapholunate joint have been well discussed over the past 12 years. Its potential for use in rehabilitation of persons with scapholunate interosseous ligament tears has been encouraged; however, evidence of its value to conservative management of this injury remains limited. There is also limited evidence that dart throwers’ orthoses (DTO) actually restrict movement to the plane they are designed to restrict it to. The authors will report on the ability of 1 particular type of DTO to control motion to the dart throwers’ plane and then will discuss the results of the integration of this same DTO into a neuromuscular rehabilitative program for conservative management of scapholunate injury. Materials and Methods: We present an orthosis that restricts motion to the dart throwers’ motion plane and discuss its role as part of a hand therapy program. A video fluoroscopy study was completed to assess the orthosis’s restrictive influence on scapholunate motion within the dart throwers’ plane of radial extension to ulnar flexion. The fluoroscopy was completed on a patient with a deficient scapholunate ligament in one wrist, and an intact scapholunate ligament in the other. The orthosis had previously been fitted to a series of 5 patients over a period of 6 years. All patients had a demonstrated scapholunate interosseous ligament injury. Follow-up was from 7 months to 5 years with a median value of 4 years. After a prescribed period of DTO use, the patients began a neuromuscular rehabilitation program designed to enhance the proprioceptive capacities of the joint and to reinforce the role of secondary stabilizers in the wrist. Results: Video fluoroscopy testing indicated that the DTO used was able to restrict scapholunate motion in both scapholunate interosseous ligament (SLIL) intact and deficient wrists as it moved through the dart throwers’ plane. All patients returned to their preinjury level of activity and all reported improved functional hand use in subjective testing following intervention. Visual analogue pain scores were reduced from a mean of 6.5 pre treatment to 0 at the end of treatment. Grip strength and range of motion had returned to be within normal limits in all patients post treatment. Conclusions: The use of video fluoroscopy with an innovative orthosis demonstrated the ability of the orthosis to restrict scapholunate motion following damage to the scapholunate interosseous ligament. Promising results that followed the use of this DTO in combination with a neuromuscular re-education program indicate potential for these guidelines in the conservative management of this injury.

All those resident for more than three months in a regional mental hospital (426 men and 484 women) were examined for the presence of facial dyskinesia (bucco-linguo-masticatory triad). This was found in 15.3 per cent of men and 30.5 per cent of women. Phenothiazines, brain damage and length of stay in hospital all have some association with dyskinesia, but it is probable that these and other factors are contributory and that age and constitutional factors are more important in the genesis of these movement disorders. In rare individual cases dyskinesia appears to be caused by phenothiazine exposure, but in general the association between the two is of theoretical rather than clinical significance.