Pub­li­ca­tions

Mar 30, 2020

COVID-19 | The lat­est on com­mer­cial ten­an­cies | 30 March 2020

Fur­ther to our update on 26 March 2020 regard­ing the COVID-19 Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Emer­gency Mea­sures) Bill 2020 (Bill), on Sun­day 29 March 2020, the Prime Min­is­ter announced that the Nation­al Cab­i­net agrees that short term inter­ven­tion is need­ed for com­mer­cial tenancies. At this stage, there is noth­ing more than a set of…

Mar 26, 2020

COVID-19 Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Emer­gency Mea­sures) Act 2020 (NSW) – RETAIL LEAS­ES ACT 1994 (NSW)

The COVID-19 Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Emer­gency Mea­sures) Bill 2020 (NSW) was passed by both Hous­es of the New South Wales Par­lia­ment on 24 March 2020, which received assent yes­ter­day (Emer­gency Mea­sures Act). Amongst oth­er things, the Emer­gency Mea­sures Act intro­duces a new Part 11 (Response to COVID-19 pan­dem­ic) into the Retail Lease…

Mar 26, 2020

Insol­ven­cy Update | Statu­to­ry Demands, Bank­rupt­cy and Insol­vent Trad­ing | 26 March 2020

With COVID-19, the Coro­n­avirus Eco­nom­ic Response Pack­age Omnibus Bill 2020 (the Bill) has some sweep­ing changes to statu­to­ry demands, bank­rupt­cy and insol­vent trad­ing including: Statu­to­ry Demands: the min­i­mum debt for a statu­to­ry demand will be $20,000 (instead of $2,000)the time for com­pli­ance by a debtor com­pa­ny is now 6 months (instead of 21 days)This will apply…

Mar 26, 2020

COVID-19 Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Emer­gency Mea­sures) Bill 2020 | 26 March 2020

The COVID-19 Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Emer­gency Mea­sures) Bill 2020 (Bill) was passed last night and received roy­al assent today. The Bill intro­duces Part 11 into the Retail Leas­es Act 1994 (RLA) (which is a new part). The new Part 11 pro­vides that reg­u­la­tions MAY pro­vide for cer­tain mat­ters for the pur­pose of respond­ing to…

Mar 23, 2020

Tips for Own­ers Cor­po­ra­tions, Stra­ta Com­mit­tees and Stra­ta Man­agers — COVID-19

In these unprece­dent­ed times, there is a lot of uncer­tain­ty for busi­ness­es and indi­vid­u­als. This uncer­tain­ty extends to the ongo­ing and sat­is­fac­to­ry func­tion­ing of an own­ers corporation.  Stra­ta Man­agers and Stra­ta Com­mit­tees should be aware of their ongo­ing oblig­a­tions to ensure that an own­ers cor­po­ra­tion con­tin­ues to func­tion sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly dur­ing the…

Mar 19, 2020

Con­tracts in the time of the Coro­n­avirus (COVID-19)

There has been unprece­dent­ed dis­rup­tions to busi­ness­es and the econ­o­my with the cur­rent coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic. With the restric­tions being placed on the move­ment of peo­ple and gath­er­ings, COVID could have very real impli­ca­tions for a range of indus­tries like con­struc­tion, which require a large work­force to be mobilised to work on…

Mar 18, 2020

Cor­po­rate Coun­sel: the Guardians of Innovation

Cor­po­rate coun­sel may not gen­er­al­ly see them­selves as the guardians of inno­va­tion in their busi­ness­es. Nonethe­less, cor­po­rate coun­sel are the cus­to­di­ans of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, which can be defined as the legal asset in innovation. We all see inno­va­tion as a crit­i­cal ingre­di­ent in a suc­cess­ful busi­ness. How­ev­er, inno­va­tion has no intrin­sic val­ue in…

Feb 28, 2020

Top 5 ​‘Did you knows’ about get­ting a divorce

#1. Did you know that you do not actu­al­ly need the con­sent of your for­mer spouse to get a divorce? In New South Wales, you can apply for a divorce togeth­er (with your for­mer spouse) or by your­self (sole application). There are dif­fer­ent oblig­a­tions in each case par­tic­u­lar­ly with respect to ser­vice…

Feb 12, 2020

Changes to Annu­alised Salaries under Mod­ern Awards: A Short Guide

From 1 March 2020, changes to the annu­alised salary pro­vi­sions in a num­ber of mod­ern awards will impose more oner­ous admin­is­tra­tive require­ments on employ­ers with respect to award-cov­ered salaried employees.This change was the result of a deci­sion of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (FWC) ([2019] FWCFC 4368]) (Deci­sion) as part of its four year­ly review…

Jan 13, 2020

NSW Con­struc­tion Indus­try — an expert’s per­spec­tive (part 6 of 6)

Inter­view with Tadd Wal­ford, Par­tridge, Struc­tur­al EngineerOver the past eight months, I have released a series of arti­cles. This arti­cle is ​‘part 6’ of a six-part series and will be fol­lowed by my ​‘2019 wrap-up’. The series doc­u­ments my dis­cus­sions with build­ing con­sul­tants who are in the know when it comes to the cur­rent state of…