Report on Mainzeal Group Collapse and Directors' Legal Responsibilities

History and context of the Mainzeal Group

Context: Mary, Allan, Bikram are partners of a successful construction business which have been running for over 10 years. Recently the partners have decided to incorporate their business into a company. They aim to gain a listing on the NZX and issue shares to the public to fund their expansion. However, they are aware that as the directors of a company they have duties to run the business in a way that complies with applicable legal requirements. They have read about the collapse of the Mainzeal Group (Mainzeal), a once leading New Zealand property and construction companies, and are concerned that they do not fully understand directors legal responsibilities. Required: Write a report to the partners addressing the following aspect: a) History and context of the Mainzeal group b) What went wrong with the company’s business operations (what led to the group’s collapse)c) Discuss the liquidation status of Mainzeal Property and Construction Ltd (cite the relevant legislations): i. You should identify the appointed liquidator/s and summarise their most recent liquidation report. Please check the New Zealand Companies Office website for the liquidator’s reportii. Describe what is meant by profession, professional and the role played by professional accounting bodies in regulating the accounting profession.d) Discuss the responsibilities that the directors of Mainzeal failed to comply with under the New Zealand Companies Act 1993?  e) What defences did the directors present to the courts to counter the claims made by the plaintiff?f) The lessons learnt from the corporate collapse (i.e. what could have been done to prevent the collapse)g) Comment on how the corporate structure can be misused to evade legal obligations.   Guidance: • You should examine newspaper articles, documents on the Company Office website and the High court judgement regarding the Mainzeal case. Readings and references: o You are encouraged to read broadly and reference material from web sources, journal articles, reports, web documents, laws & standards. o You are required to use the APA 7th referencing style both for in-text citation and the end-of-text reference list.  Accounting Legal and Regulatory Framework o Type the assessment using a word processing software and use a professional style of presentation. o The report should have a title, headings and subheadings. A clear reference list should be provided at the end of the report. • Penalties: o Explain in your own words as much as possible to avoid ‘cut and paste’ in your writing. Assessments which show high similarity (i.e. over 20% similarity match) . The penalty for late submission will be a reduction by 5% or one grade (e.g. B+ to B) per day up to a maximum of five days. An assessment item will not be marked if it is more than five days late. If you are unable to submit on time due to illness you must provide a doctor/medical letter.