Payments weren’t flowing down the chain to where they were badly needed, and disputes took far too much time and money to resolve. So the Government followed the lead already taken by a number of other western countries, and passed the CCA to address these issues. The main thrust of the CCA is to get payment to the contractors at the bottom of the pile promptly, and the two main ways it does that, are payment claims and adjudication.

You may have heard of the law called "voidable transactions". You may be aware that under that law, you can be made to hand back the money that your customer has paid you, any time in the last two years, if he goes bust. And you may be aware that our Supreme Court has recently issued a ruling that has radically changed the law. This newsletter tells you what it’s all about.

And it happened again when Whitcoulls and Borders were recently put into administration. People holding unredeemed gift tokens or vouchers (including my 11 year old daughter) were told that they would not be redeemed for their face value. The best they could do was buy a product for at least twice the face value of the token, and get a discount equivalent to that face value, with the rest of the price payable in cash. How is it that retailers can get away with this? What is the relevant law?

That could be because they don’t like the quality or standard of the goods or services you have supplied, or it could be because they are short of money. If they are short of money, chances are that there are a lot of other suppliers who haven’t been paid as well. In that case there is going to be a contest between you and the other creditors as to who gets paid first. And that will come down to who is the most resourceful when it comes to putting pressure on the debtor.

It could be the company’s directors or shareholders, it could be one of the company’s creditors, or in extreme cases it could be the Government, acting to save hundreds of investors by putting a high profile company into statutory management.

It was a major reform for New Zealand because it cleaned up a lot of inconsistent and dated laws in the important field of creditor’s remedies, but there is no doubt that the PPSA is an extremely complex law in itself. Although most businesses are familiar with it, some have a far greater working knowledge of it than others.

I discussed various forms of security from debentures through to Romalpa clauses. I mentioned that there is a new law called the Personal Property Securities Act (PPSA) that is about to change all the ground rules relating to securities. This is how it will affect you

This month, here are some suggestions to increase your chances of getting paid or at least minimising your loss.