Pub­li­ca­tions

Nov 4, 2025

Restraints and Real Estate – what is enforceable

What do post-employ­ment restraints in real estate real­ly mean for agents and employ­ers? In the prop­er­ty indus­try, employ­ment agree­ments often include three key restraints: non-solic­i­ta­tion, non-accep­tance, and non-com­pe­ti­tion. These claus­es aim to pro­tect client rela­tion­ships, con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion, and busi­ness good­will, but their enforce­abil­i­ty depends on how they’re draft­ed and applied…

Nov 4, 2025

Reform­ing Retail Leas­es? Retail Leas­es Amend­ment (Review) Bill 2025 (NSW)

What does the Retail Leas­es Amend­ment (Review) Bill 2025 mean for land­lords and ten­ants in NSW?On 14 Octo­ber 2025, the Min­is­ter for Small Busi­ness intro­duced the Retail Leas­es Amend­ment (Review) Bill 2025 (Bill) to NSW Par­lia­ment to imple­ment the first tranche of leg­isla­tive reforms to the Retail Leas­es Act 1994 (Act)…

Oct 27, 2025

Putting the West­pac Work­ing From Home Case in Perspective

Can employ­ees real­ly work from home if they want to? In a recent Fair Work case an employ­ee won the right to work from home, but it turns out it’s not that sim­ple. It can only be request­ed under cer­tain con­di­tions and each case depends on the sit­u­a­tion of the employ­ee and…

Oct 13, 2025

The risk of builder insol­ven­cy mid way through a con­struc­tion project is real (and will prob­a­bly be expensive)

Intro­duc­tionThis arti­cle pro­vides guid­ance to those under­tak­ing con­struc­tion works and iden­ti­fies a num­ber of con­tract pro­vi­sions which, if includ­ed in the con­struc­tion con­tract, can assist a devel­op­er to iden­ti­fy and then man­age a builder insol­ven­cy event should it arise. All con­struc­tion projects come with risk (and reward)Some of the usu­al risks that imme­di­ate­ly come to mind include:Cost…

Sep 30, 2025

Cross-Com­pa­ny Secu­ri­ty and Liq­uida­tor Chal­lenges: Full Fed­er­al Court Restores Cer­tain­ty in CEG Direct Secu­ri­ties v Coop­er [2025] FCAFC 47

A sig­nif­i­cant deci­sion from the Full Fed­er­al Court has clar­i­fied the lim­its of liq­uida­tors’ pow­ers to unwind cross-com­pa­ny secu­ri­ty grant­ed to relat­ed entities.The deci­sion has re-enforced the com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty of intra-group finance arrange­ments when prop­er­ly struc­tured and documented.In CEG Direct Secu­ri­ties Pty Ltd v Coop­er as liq­uida­tor of Run­tong Invest­ment and Devel­op­ment Pty…

Sep 9, 2025

Copy­right and Gen­er­a­tive AI: what Aus­tralia can learn from the Meta and Anthrop­ic Rulings

In 2025, two U.S. court deci­sions, Kadrey v. Meta and Bartz v. Anthrop­ic, have pro­vid­ed the first real judi­cial answers to a press­ing ques­tion, can using copy­right­ed works to train large lan­guage mod­els (LLMs) amount to fair use?Judges Vince Chhabria and William Alsup, in the Meta and Anthrop­ic cas­es respec­tive­ly, both found…

Sep 8, 2025

Fed­er­al Court Deci­sion Lim­its Effec­tive Use of Set-Off in Con­trac­tu­al Annu­al Salary Arrangements

The Deci­sionIn a recent Fed­er­al Court deci­sion*, Jus­tice Per­ram held that while con­trac­tu­al set-off claus­es in an annu­al salary arrange­ment can be effec­tive for the sat­is­fac­tion of mod­ern award enti­tle­ments dur­ing a pay peri­od, they are inef­fec­tive between pay peri­ods. This is a sig­nif­i­cant lim­i­ta­tion on the prac­ti­cal use of con­trac­tu­al annu­al salary…

Sep 8, 2025

Pro­tect­ing your tomor­row, today: The impor­tance of an endur­ing pow­er of attorney

We often talk about the impor­tance of draft­ing your estate plan­ning doc­u­ments, includ­ing how draft­ing your will can ensure your loved ones are pro­vid­ed for as you wish, and the risk of dying intes­tate, giv­ing the State author­i­ty to decide how your estate is admin­is­tered, is avoid­ed fol­low­ing your death. But…

Sep 2, 2025

NSW Fair Trad­ing com­pli­ance | What to do if you receive a complaint

You receive a let­ter from NSW Fair Trad­ing (OFT) in your inbox refer­ring to a ​‘com­plaint’ being lodged against you/​your agency and requir­ing infor­ma­tion to be pro­vid­ed with­in a few days. It’s daunt­ing to receive one of these let­ters, espe­cial­ly if it’s your first. You’ll be won­der­ing who com­plained, what did you do…

Sep 1, 2025

AS4000:2025 – What is all the fuss about?

With the recent release of the updat­ed AS4000:2025, for the first time in over 28 years, many stake­hold­ers in the con­struc­tion indus­try are ques­tion­ing if there is an impact on their risk pro­file when using this updat­ed AS4000:2025. The sim­ple answer, by Stan­dards Aus­tralia, is there has been no sig­nif­i­cant change to…