The recent High Court Annual Report^[1] demonstrates a continuing increase in insolvency proceedings.

The number of new insolvency proceedings continues to rise, with 2025 seeing an increase of 9.7% from the prior year. Since 2023, the majority of new insolvency proceedings have been filed in Auckland.

The number of company liquidation applications filed has also increased steadily since about May 2022. This increase is almost entirely driven by new applications in the Auckland Circuit.

 What’s behind it?

The Economic Climate

The increases in insolvency proceedings and liquidation applications are unsurprising given the current economic climate. In the High Court’s Annual Report, Associate Judge Lester noted that the “tight economic conditions which have existed in recent years mean the number of applications for company liquidations and bankruptcies continue to increase”.

Complex cases

Though insolvency processes in New Zealand are relatively streamlined, they can raise thorny issues, likely adding to the increase in proceedings. Three liquidations demonstrate such issues arising:

1. Tiny Homes - in 2023, the High Court gave purchasers priority to property over secured creditors, despite the sale of the property having not yet been completed.^[2] To effect this, the Court recognised an ‘equitable lien over goods’. This was the first time such a concept was recognised following the introduction of the personal property security regime. Though the concept was later dismissed by the Court of Appeal in a different case,^[3] it demonstrates how a seemingly small business liquidation can easily become complex. You can read more about the 2023 judgment here and the Court of Appeal 2024 decision here.
2. Du Val Group - the High Court placed key entities within the Du Val Group into interim receivership in 2024.^[4] As the group contained many entities, the receivership became too complex for insolvency law to handle, leading the Government to place 70 entities related to Du Val into statutory management,^[5] which is rarely invoked and usually reserved for very large corporate collapses (eg the Equiticorp statutory management in the late 1980s, which is on-going!).
3. Ormiston Rise - the Ormiston Rise liquidation generated a series of disputes over 2023-2025 concerning a variety of issues.^[6] These included disputes relating to the liquidator’s power to require information from overseas parties, the liquidator’s appearance of a lack of independence, and the liquidator’s invalid appointment. 

How is the High Court managing this?

Though the increasing number of company liquidation applications filed hasn’t quite reached the high levels seen during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, the steadily growing increase has caught the High Court’s attention. To help manage the growing insolvency caseload, the High Court appointed an additional Associate Judge in August 2025 - Associate Judge Gellert. 

Associate Judges deal with civil/commercial and insolvency-related claims and are the primary decision makers in liquidation and bankruptcy applications. 

The last two years mark the first time that the total number of Associate Judges has seen a noticeable increase in the last five years, going from consistently having seven Associate Judges across 2021-2024, to having eight in 2025. Adding to this, the appointments of Associate Judges Wild and Malarao (Auckland) and Gambrill (Christchurch), in 2026 mean there are now nine High Court Associate Judges.^[7]

This clearly indicates that the Ministry of Justice and the High Court expect that the number of insolvency related matters will rise further, and that there will likely be a longish tail to that work.

Special thanks to Neha Pannu for her assistance in writing this article.