Statutory directors’ duties, the civil penalty

regime and shareholder ratification: What role

does the public interest play?

INTRODUCTION
The year 2013 marked the 20th anniversary of the commencement of the civil penalty regime that is
now contained in Pt 9.4B of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). This reform provided the corporate
regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), with a range of civil
measures that dramatically reduced the need for reliance upon criminal sanctions.1 These civil
penalties include remedies only available to ASIC.2 This significantly contrasts the general law
position where civil remedies are predominantly sought by the company at the behest of its
shareholders. The introduction of these statutory civil penalties, and in particular ASIC’s standing to
commence civil penalty proceedings, has raised questions as to the relevance of public interest
considerations beyond simply the interests of the company and its shareholders. The uncertainty
surrounding this topic has most recently been highlighted in ASIC v Cassimatis3 where Reeves J left
undecided the impact that the interests of the shareholders had with respect to potentially precluding
ASIC’s ability to enforce an alleged breach of s 180(1) of the Corporations Act.
This article will explore the nature and scope of the public interest dimension to the duties of a
director under the Corporations Act, and its relationship to the interests of the company and its
shareholders. At a conceptual level, the core of the debate appears to lay in the continuing trend
towards a greater emphasis on public policy and social responsibility considerations within the
corporate sector, especially in light of recent corporate collapses. This conflicts with the more
traditional understanding of the company as a private undertaking managed purely for the benefit of its
shareholders. The article will therefore commence with an analysis of the purpose and intent behind
the enactment of statutory directors’ duties and the more recent introduction of the civil penalty
*
LLB (Hons) (Qld), BCom (Qld) (Hons) (Monash). An earlier version of this article was presented in partial fulfilment of the
Honours degree of Bachelor of Commerce at Monash University. The author would like to thank Dr Phillip Lipton of the
Department of Business Law and Taxation for his invaluable comments and advice. Any remaining errors are the authors.
1
Comino V, “The Enforcement Record of ASIC Since the Introduction of the Civil Penalty Regime” (2007) 20 Australian
Journal of Corporate Law 183 at 187.
2
Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), ss 206C, 1317J(1).
3
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Cassimatis [2013] FCA 641.

(2014) 32 C&SLJ 399 399

Piling 2020
4. Additional Design Considerations
4.1 Extrusion and Edge Stability
The aforementioned design approaches cover the design of
infinitely wide platforms. They do not provide design
approaches to assess the platform edge stability, which can be
critical particularly on restricted sites and where there is a soft
subgrade.
In a similar way as one would consider extrusion and rotational
failures under a larger embankment, the platform edge stability
should be considered (Shown as Fig. 4 . These failure modes
are well covered by chapter 6 of BS 8006-1 (British Standards
Institute 2016), which includes design approaches for both
mechanisms in reinforced platforms, albeit considering them
as permanent embankments.
Figure 6: Embankment External Failures: Top: Rotational
Failure; Bottom: Extrusion failure (Extract from BS8006-
1995)
Extrusion is particularly problematic for heavily loaded
embankments or essentially thicker working platforms over
thin layers of weak soils. Here, the imposed loading can cause
extrusion of the weak underlying soils, which have insufficient
strength to resist the out of balance active earth pressures. Like
a toothpaste tube under pressure, this soft soil undergoes plastic
deformation out from underneath the embankment, causing the
platform to settle by displacement.
Smith and Tatari (2016) investigated the susceptibility of
reinforced embankments over weak soils to cause extrusion.
Their analysis using the DLO software programme,
LimitState:GEO and looked at the failure mechanisms of the
platform over varying soil strengths. The stability of highly
reinforced platforms was dominated by a susceptibility to this
346
“squeezing” deformation in the lower stratum. Depending on
the geometry and reinforcement strength, the embankment
itself either undergoes very localised shearing and vertical
“sinking” translation or rotational “snapping”. In both these
cases further increasing the strength of the reinforcement does
little to improve stability of the platform.
Where extrusion is a problem, standard solutions have included
flattening the side slopes or increasing the set-back from the
edge of the platform. Mounded fill around the platform can
provide counter pressure to extrusion. While sheet piling can
be used to cut off and retain these soft soils this solution is often
prohibitively expensive for large temporary sites. Where the
soft soil depth is limited in depth (e.g. 2 to 3 m), it may be more
economical to simply excavate it and replace with competent
granular fill.
4.2 Extrusion - Shear Key Trenches
Rather than excavating and replacing all the underlying weak
soils, this activity can be limited to the perimeter of the site in
a trench, creating a shear key. This is a well-established
earthworks technique used to disrupt potential weak slip-
planes (Giffen 2015).
There are three possible categories of shear key (see Fig. 8):
Unreinforced Full Depth: Typically extending through the
weak soil layer(s) and embedded into stronger soils below, the
key completely isolates the weaker layer, preventing extrusion.
The granular fill to these trenches improves the drainage of the
soft underlying soils.
Reinforced Full Depth: To limit the width of the key, and
excavation, geotextiles can be used to encase the trench and
maintain the integrity of a smaller shear key trench.
Reinforced Partial Depth: Where the depth of the soft layers,
makes a full depth trench uneconomical, a trench can be
considered that extends only a limited distance into to the soft
soil. This extends deep enough to limit the effective thickness
of the soft layer, until the destabilising extrusion pressure can
be resisted.
 Proceedings of the XVI ECSMGE
Geotechnical Engineering for Infrastructure and Development
ISBN 978-0-7277-6067-8

© The authors and ICE Publishing: All rights reserved, 2015

doi:10.1680/ecsmge.60678

Working platforms for tracked plant – an alternative

design approach to BR470 using hexagonal geogrid
mechanically stabilised layers
Plates-formes de travail d’usine de chenilles, une approche de
conception alternatives à une BR470 utilisant une couche stabilisé
mécaniquement avec une géogrille hexagonal
Mitul J Dalwadi*1 and John Dixon1
1
Tensar International UK
* Corresponding Author
ABSTRACT Temporary working platforms are critical for plant stability, efficiency and safe operation. The guide to good practice (BR
470), ‘Working platforms for tracked plant’ was prepared by BRE in June 2004. The prime objective of this guide is to achieve an accepta-
ble level of safety for piling and other tracked plant operations. The guide includes the option to use geosynthetic products as structural re-
inforcement. Designs based on this guideline often results in an excessively thick working platform. Extensive research has been carried
out on unbound aggregate layers mechanically stabilised with a hexagonal structure geogrid with triangular apertures. Based on this re-
search together with experience from the field, a load spread method has been developed as an alternative approach to the BR470 guide that
provides a safe but more economic design with a lower carbon footprint. This approach has been widely used on numerous projects in UK
for working platforms over weak foundation soil, sometimes including extreme loading conditions. This paper highlights the application of
mechanically stabilised working platforms on two projects with challenging geotechnical and loading conditions; Crossrail, Contract C310
at North Woolwich and a commercial development at Ipswich. The stabilised working platforms not only allowed the use of recycled mate-
rial but also reduced the thickness of working platform by up to 65% compared to a design to BR470. Thus mechanically stabilised work-
ing platforms designed with a load spread method empirically derived for hexagonal structure geogrids can reduce the cost and time of con-
struction and minimise or avoid the need to import granular fill, while still creating a sustainable, safe working platform for the tracked
plant.

RÉSUMÉ Plates-formes de travail temporaires sont essentielles pour la stabilité de l'installation, l'efficacité et la sécurité de fonctionne-
ment. Le guide de bonnes pratiques (BR 470), «les plates-formes de travail pour l'usine de camions» a été préparé par le BRE en Juin 2004
Le premier objectif de ce guide est d'atteindre un niveau de sécurité acceptable pour empilage et d'autres opérations de l'usine à chenilles.
Le guide inclut l'option d'utiliser des produits géosynthétiques comme renfort structurel. Conceptions basées sur cette directive se traduit
souvent par une plate-forme de travail trop épaisse. Des recherches approfondies ont été réalisées sur des couches d'agrégats non liés méca-
niquement stabilisé avec une structure de géogrille hexagonale avec des ouvertures triangulaires. Sur la base de cette recherche avec une
expérience sur le terrain, une méthode de charge de propagation a été conçue comme une approche alternative au guide de BR470 qui four-
nit une conception économique sûr, mais plus avec une empreinte carbone plus faible. Cette approche a été largement utilisée dans de nom-
breux projets au Royaume-Uni pour les plates-formes de travail sur des sols de fondation plus faibles, parfois inclus, conditions de charge
extrêmes. Ce document met en évidence l'application de plates-formes de travail stabilisées mécaniquement sur deux projets avec des con-
ditions géotechniques et de chargement difficiles; Crossrail, contrat C310 à North Woolwich et de développement commercial à Ipswich.
Les plates-formes de travail stabilisées non seulement permis l'utilisation de matériaux recyclés, mais aussi de réduire l'épaisseur de la
plate-forme de travail pouvant aller jusqu'à 65% par rapport à une conception avec le BR470. Ainsi les plates-formes de travail stabilisé
mécaniquement conçus avec une méthode de charge de propagation de façon empirique pour des structures de géogrille hexagonale peut
réduire le coût et le temps de construction et de réduire ou d'éviter la nécessité d'importer le remblai granulaire, tout en créant une plate-
forme de travail durable, sans danger pour le suivi du projet.

1395