Newslet­ters

Pre­vi­ous newsletters

Swaab Con­nect — August 2020

In this edi­tion Part­ner, Helen Kow­al dis­cuss­es build­ing defects in stra­ta schemes and what a stra­ta scheme should do to ensure their rights under the Home Build­ing Act 1989 (HBA). Michael Byrnes dis­cuss­es the duties owed by employ­ers to pro­tect the health and safe­ty of staff when sit­u­a­tions arise in rela­tion to the recent emer­gence of the anti-mask ​‘activists’ and final­ly, Michael Byrnes and Emi­ly Capen­er dis­cuss the announce­ment regard­ing the Job­Keep­er scheme, which was orig­i­nal­ly due to come to an end on 27 Sep­tem­ber 2020.
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Swaab Con­nect — July 2020

In this edi­tion of Swaab Con­nect we announce a strate­gic mile­stone with the inte­gra­tion of Hard­ings Lawyers and Swaab effec­tive 1 July. We con­grat­u­late Sean Green­wood on his pro­mo­tion to Senior Asso­ciate in our lit­i­ga­tion team, Michael Byrnes and Emi­ly Capen­er exam­ine the recent deci­sion by the Full Bench of the FWC regard­ing Uber Eats, Helen Kow­al pro­vides an update on the cur­rent state of the NSW Con­struc­tion Indus­try and we also pro­vide the lat­est updates, pub­li­ca­tions and alerts in rela­tion to COVID-19.
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Swaab Con­nect — May 2020

We bring you the sec­ond install­ment of our Swaab Con­nect COVID-19 edi­tion as we aim to pro­vide you with a sum­ma­ry of our alerts, updates and pub­li­ca­tions to date, as well as pro­vide some insight on the effect of COVID-19 on Fam­i­ly, Prop­er­ty, Employ­ment Law and more.
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Swaab Con­nect — April 2020

This month we bring you a COVID-19 edi­tion of Swaab Con­nect as we aim to pro­vide you with a sum­ma­ry of our alerts, updates and pub­li­ca­tions to date, as well as pro­vide some insight on the effect of COVID-19 on Fam­i­ly, Prop­er­ty, Employ­ment Law and more.
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Swaab Con­nect — March 2020

In this edi­tion Michael Byrnes and Emi­ly Capen­er cre­ate a short guide the recent changes the Annu­alised Salaries under Mod­ern Awards effec­tive from 1 March 2020 and how the changes will impose more oner­ous admin­is­tra­tive require­ments on employ­ers. Senior Asso­ciate Monique Love­day pro­vides some insight to the things you should be aware of when going through a divorce or sep­a­ra­tion and Eric Ziehlke explains why inno­va­tion lies at the very heart of your busi­ness and should be the foun­da­tion of future plan­ning and growth. We also fea­ture a pod­cast with Michael Byrnes on Mon­ey News with Brooke Corte relat­ing to the recent Coro­n­avirus and man­ag­ing employ­ee leave entitlements. 
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Swaab Con­nect — Jan­u­ary 2020

In our very first edi­tion of the decade Part­ner Helen Kow­al inter­views Struc­tur­al Engi­neer, Tadd Wal­ford to deliv­er the final instal­ment of the NSW Con­struc­tion Indus­try Series which doc­u­ments dis­cus­sions with build­ing con­sul­tants who are in the know when it comes to the cur­rent state of the con­struc­tion indus­try. Sat­ur­day the 25th Jan­u­ary marked the begin­ning of the Lunar New Year, a 15-day fes­ti­val that cel­e­brates the begin­ning of the Lunar cal­en­dar, this year cel­e­brat­ing the Year of the Rat. Senior Asso­ciate Monique Love­day pro­vides help­ful tips on how to col­lect and store evi­dence safe­ly when it comes to cyber and online abuse after a sep­a­ra­tion and Angela Har­vey indi­cates five times you should review your estate planning.
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Swaab Con­nect — Novem­ber 2019

In this edi­tion Michael Byrnes points out a few sen­si­ble steps that can help man­age the risks of ​‘Sil­ly Sea­son’ events in the lead up to Christ­mas. With the Sher­gold Weir Report reg­u­la­tions not being set until 2020 Part­ner Helen Kow­al advis­es how design­ers and build­ing prac­ti­tion­ers should famil­iarise them­selves with the Draft Bill and under­stand what is com­ing. Also, a ques­tion often asked by employ­ers fac­ing an unfair dis­missal claim is, what hap­pens if the mat­ter can­not be set­tled? Whilst the vast major­i­ty of unfair dis­missal cas­es are resolved at con­cil­i­a­tion, some pro­ceed to a hear­ing, Part­ner Richard Ott­ley explains.
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Swaab Con­nect — Octo­ber 2019

When it comes to ter­mi­nat­ing employ­ees due to changes in oper­a­tional require­ments , com­pli­ance is key, Part­ner Richard Ott­ley talks about gen­uine redun­dan­cy ver­sus unfair dis­missal and how the dif­fer­ence could be in the con­sul­ta­tion. Dis­agree with a val­u­a­tion by joint­ly instruct­ed sin­gle expert? Fam­i­ly Law Senior Asso­ciate, Monique Love­day explains what not to do. Part­ner Marc Bad­dams out­lines the changes that will apply to con­struc­tion con­tracts in NSW from 21 Octo­ber and Asso­ciate Sean Green­wood dis­cuss­es secu­ri­ty costs for non-res­i­dent plaintiffs.
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Swaab Con­nect — Sep­tem­ber 2019

A per­son who is the sub­ject of a defam­a­to­ry pub­li­ca­tion can sue for defama­tion, but what about com­pa­nies? Marc Bad­dams and Sean Green­wood advise if a com­pa­ny can sue for defama­tion. Michael Byrnes out­lines some ini­tial obser­va­tions fol­low­ing The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment’s deci­sion to release​‘reli­gious free­dom reforms’, Richard Ott­ley looks at fac­tors which may impact upon the cer­tain­ty and dura­bil­i­ty of deeds of release, we also dis­cuss the lat­est devel­op­­ments fol­low­ing the recent Mon­delez deci­sion and out­line how personal/​car­ers leave should be calculated.
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Swaab Con­nect — August 2019

This month we are delight­ed to wel­come Alexan­dra Streltso­va to the firm’s lit­i­ga­tion team, Part­ner Eric Ziehlke explains why recent polit­i­cal changes in the Unit­ed King­dom have raised the prospect of a​‘no deal’ Brex­it as a seri­ous pos­si­bil­i­ty, Part­ner Helen Kow­al inter­views Allan Har­ri­man OAM for the third instal­ment of the NSW con­struc­tion series, Accred­it­ed Spe­cial­ist, Annette Wil­son breaks down the com­plex­i­ty of what you need to know about divorce and sep­a­ra­tion and final­ly we announce the results of the first ever Mer­i­tas Well­ness Sur­vey which involved over 200 staff mem­bers from Mer­i­tas affil­i­at­ed law firms.
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