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New code for pri­vate equi­ty funds

In Brief On 7 Sep­tem­ber 2011, the Aus­tralian Pri­vate Equi­ty and Ven­ture Cap­i­tal Asso­ci­a­tion (AVCAL) released a new cor­po­rate gov­er­nance code for the pri­vate equi­ty industry. The Code is based on exist­ing cor­po­rate gov­er­nance guide­lines already used by reg­u­la­tors such as the ASX, and builds on ini­tia­tives by oth­er nation­al indus­try asso­ci­a­tions, respon­si­ble invest­ment…

New retail leas­ing dis­clo­sure oblig­a­tions now in force oth­er amend­ments proposed 

In brief – New land­lord dis­clo­sure state­ments and pro­posed amend­ments to retail leas­ing laws Retail land­lords now have new dis­clo­sure oblig­a­tions and also need to be aware of pro­posed changes under the Retail Leas­es Amend­ment Bill (2011). New dis­clo­sure oblig­a­tions for retail landlords As from 1 Jan­u­ary 2011, a new form of land­lord dis­clo­sure…

Swaab appoint new lawyer to cor­po­rate and com­mer­cial team

Swaab wel­comes new lawyer Kel­ly Mar­shall to our cor­po­rate and com­mer­cial team. Kel­ly is a com­mer­cial and cor­po­rate advi­so­ry lawyer with spe­cial­ist indus­try focus in Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty, and the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, Media and Tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor. Kel­ly has advised pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor clients on a wide range of com­mer­cial and cor­po­rate issues includ­ing IP…

Reform of Aus­tralian Con­tract Law

On 22 March 2012 the Com­mon­wealth Attor­ney-Gen­er­al, Nico­la Rox­on, released a dis­cus­sion paper which could lead to wide-rang­ing review and reform of con­tract law in Australia. The dis­cus­sion paper was pre­pared by the Com­mon­wealth Attor­ney-Gen­er­al’s Depart­ment. In its sum­ma­ry of the paper, the Depart­ment refers to sev­er­al objec­tives it says may be…

A time­ly reminder about cal­cu­lat­ing com­pen­sa­tion claims in IP infringe­ment cases

In brief Recent­ly, the Full Court of the Fed­er­al Court of Aus­tralia hand­ed down its deci­sion in Fac­ton Ltd v Rifai Fash­ions Pty Ltd involv­ing the impor­ta­tion into Aus­tralia and sale of coun­ter­feit G‑STAR brand­ed cloth­ing and acces­sories.1 The case pro­vides a use­ful dis­cus­sion on the law of dam­ages for coun­ter­feit goods…

Acci­dents hap­pen. the impor­tance of appoint­ing your Endur­ing Guardian and Endur­ing Pow­er of Attorney

In Brief Gen­er­al­ly we pre­fer to make our own deci­sions con­cern­ing our per­son­al lives and finances. But what hap­pens if we lose our men­tal capac­i­ty, due to injury or acci­dent, and are ren­dered unable to make such deci­sions ourselves? You can plan for your future by appoint­ing an endur­ing guardian and endur­ing…

The new world of OH&S - is there any substantial difference?

In Brief The Work Health and Safe­ty Act 2011 (NSW) (‘WHS Act’) came into effect on 1 Jan­u­ary 2012 and has brought with it sig­nif­i­cant changes and even ben­e­fits for employ­ers. The fol­low­ing gives you a short sum­ma­ry of this long-await­ed change. Who or what is a: Per­sons Con­duct­ing a Busi­ness or Under­tak­ing (‘PCBU’) A PCBU…

Ter­mi­nat­ing a lease — what not to do

In Brief A land­lord com­mu­ni­cat­ing to a ten­ant a ter­mi­na­tion of a lease must be clear. This is evi­dent from the deci­sion in Dee-Tech Pty Ltd v Ned­dam Hold­ings Pty Ltd [2010] NSWCA. The terms pro­vide for the right A lease will gen­er­al­ly pro­vide for the cir­cum­stances where a land­lord is enti­tled to exer­cise its con­trac­tu­al right to ter­mi­nate…

Cost­ly con­se­quences of not tak­ing Gen­uine Steps

In Brief A recent deci­sion of the Fed­er­al Court of Aus­tralia sig­nals the impor­tance of par­ties to dis­putes and their legal rep­re­sen­ta­tives com­ply­ing with their oblig­a­tions under the Civ­il Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Act 2011 (Cth) (CDR Act). The case The deci­sion, Supe­ri­or IP Inter­na­tion­al Pty Ltd v Ahearn Fox Patent and Trade Mark Attor­neys [2012]…

Swaab fea­tured in Lawyers Week­ly on how glob­al asso­ci­a­tions work

Fea­tured in Lawyers Week­ly, Swaab intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty part­ner Matthew Hall dis­cuss­es the ben­e­fits of being a part of glob­al legal net­work, Mer­i­tas. With Mer­i­tas’s invi­ta­tion-only mem­ber­ship and strict qual­i­ty con­trols, it pro­vides our clients with access to an inter­na­tion­al net­work of trust­ed colleagues…

Hol­ly­wood stu­dios lose to ISP iiNet in copy­right autho­ri­sa­tion case

In Brief Hol­ly­wood stu­dios have appealed the recent land­mark Fed­er­al Court deci­sion that found inter­net ser­vice provider (ISP) iiNet not liable for copy­right infringe­ments by its customers. Ille­gal down­load­ing by iiNet customers Despite pro­lif­ic ille­gal down­load­ing by iiNet cus­tomers using the Bit­Tor­rent peer-to-peer pro­to­col, iiNet did no more than pro­vide a legit­i­mate means…

Footy Wars Con­tin­ue: Optus’ win reversed by Full Fed­er­al Court

Footy Wars Con­tin­ue: Optus’ win reversed by Full Fed­er­al Court In our pre­vi­ous arti­cle, ​“Optus Wins Most Recent Footy Wars”, we looked at the Fed­er­al Court’s deci­sion per­mit­ting Optus to offer its users ​“near-live” broad­casts of sport­ing events, with­out hav­ing to pay licence fees to the rights hold­ers, under the ​“time-shift­ing”…

iiNet may have pre­vailed in copy­right infringe­ment case, but ISPs should beware 

In Brief After much delib­er­a­tion, the iiNet mat­ter has been laid to rest with the High Court uphold­ing the Full Fed­er­al Court deci­sion that iiNet is not liable for the copy­right infring­ing actions of its customers. Ulti­mate­ly, the case turned on what it meant to ​“autho­rise” con­duct in breach of sec­tion…

Still haven’t found what I’m look­ing for… Teething Prob­lems with the PPSR

More than three months after the go-live, sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems per­sist with the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the Per­son­al Prop­er­ty Secu­ri­ties Reg­is­ter (PPSR). Migrat­ed pre-PPSA reg­is­tered secu­ri­ty interests The Reg­is­trar of the PPSR con­firmed ear­ly on that a large num­ber of errors and omis­sions occurred in the migra­tion of data from ASIC and State & Ter­ri­to­ry…

Changes to cred­it reporting

In Brief On 2 May 2012, the Com­mon­wealth Attor­ney-Gen­er­al, Nico­la Rox­on, announced that pro­posed amend­ments to the Pri­va­cy Act 1988 (Cth) will be intro­duced dur­ing the win­ter ses­sion of Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment. The pro­posed amend­ments will include changes to the way in which cred­it report­ing oper­ates in Australia. The pro­posed changes to cred­it report­ing…