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Amend­ments to NCC 2022 com­menc­ing on 1 May 2025

Back­groundThe Aus­tralian Build­ing Codes Board (ABCB), a joint ini­tia­tive of the Com­mon­wealth and state and ter­ri­to­ry gov­ern­ments togeth­er with the build­ing and plumb­ing indus­tries, is respon­si­ble for the Nation­al Con­struc­tion Code, Water­Mark and Code­Mark Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Schemes, and reg­u­la­to­ry reform in the con­struc­tion industry. One of the ABCB’s pri­ma­ry roles is to update and main­tain…

Match­ing Par­ent­ing Orders to Risk: Craft­ing orders to prop­er­ly address the dan­gers in a fam­i­ly law matter

The focus of any par­ent­ing mat­ter being dealt with in the Fed­er­al Cir­cuit and Fam­i­ly Court of Aus­tralia is what orders are in the best inter­ests of the child. To deter­mine what is in the best inter­ests of the child, the Court must con­sid­er all of the evi­dence pre­sent­ed in…

Meta’s AI law­suit in the USA & what it could mean for the future of AI & copyright

Recent­ly, Meta appeared in a US fed­er­al court to defend one of the most close­ly watched copy­right chal­lenges of the AI era. The law­suit is being brought by a group of promi­nent US authors includ­ing Ta-Nehisi Coates and Richard Kadrey. The plain­tiffs allege that Meta unlaw­ful­ly used mil­lions of copy­right­ed books, down­loaded…

Press Release | Swaab’s James Skel­ton Appoint­ed Chair of Glob­al Emerg­ing Lead­ers Advi­so­ry Board at Mer­i­tas AGM in Mex­i­co City

In this piv­otal lead­er­ship role, James will guide ini­tia­tives to strength­en rela­tion­ships among Emerg­ing Lead­ers across Mer­i­tas’ 175 glob­al mem­ber firms and enhance resources that sup­port a net­work of more than 9,000 lawyers worldwide.James joins the lead­er­ship team alongside:Mol­ly Cam­po­long – Chair-Elect (Robin­son Gray, Colum­bia, South Car­oli­na, USA)Jem­ma For­rest – Sec­re­tary (Ander­son Strath­ern, Glas­gow…

Which edi­tion of Build­ing Code of Aus­tralia applies to devel­op­ments in NSW?

The Build­ing Code of Aus­tralia (BCA) is part of the the Nation­al Con­struc­tion Code (NCC). The NCC is updat­ed every 3 years, based on required reg­u­la­to­ry prac­tices, indus­try research, pub­lic feed­back and pol­i­cy direc­tions from gov­ern­ments between pub­lish­ing cycles.Con­struc­tion projects often span 2 ver­sions of the BCA.There has his­tor­i­cal­ly been much debate in the New…

Oper­a­tions and Projects Coordinator

About the roleThe Oper­a­tions and Projects Coor­di­na­tor (OPC) is respon­si­ble for the deliv­ery of effec­tive and pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness and oper­a­tional sup­port to the legal prac­tice groups at Swaab and ensures the ser­vice pro­vid­ed by the Oper­a­tions Team meet the qual­i­ty stan­dards and expec­ta­tions of stake­hold­ers with­in the Firm.The OPC is respon­si­ble for…

Devel­op­ers beware the statu­to­ry ​‘non del­e­gable’ duty of care under the Design and Build­ing Prac­ti­tion­ers Act 2020

The Design and Build­ing Prac­ti­tion­ers Act 2020 (DBP Act) came into effect in NSW in June 2020. Since its intro­duc­tion the courts have pro­vid­ed guid­ance on the inter­pre­ta­tion and reach of this Act. This arti­cle looks at the recent High Court deci­sion of Paf­burn Pty Ltd v The Own­ers – Stra­ta Plan No…

Beware Retail Lease Dis­close Statements

Before a retail lease is entered into, the Retail Leas­es Act 1994 (NSW) (the RL Act) requires a land­lord to give a signed Lessor’s Dis­clo­sure State­ment (Dis­clo­sure State­ment) to the ten­ant. The Dis­clo­sure State­ment con­tains impor­tant infor­ma­tion about the premis­es and the com­mer­cial terms of the lease — such as the per­mit­ted use, the…

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, ​“Pro­posed non-com­pete ban could back­fire on work­ers, firm warns”, pub­lished in Lawyers Week­ly on 20 May 2025

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, ​“Pro­posed non-com­pete ban could back­fire on work­ers, firm warns”, pub­lished in Lawyers Week­ly on 20 May 2025To read the full arti­cle click here…

No will, no direc­tion: The estate of Liam Payne and under­stand­ing law of intestacy

When Liam Payne sang ​“nobody can drag me down” we did­n’t think he was talk­ing about his aver­sion to sit­ting down and draft­ing his estate plan­ning doc­u­ments. How­ev­er, after leav­ing no valid will on his death, the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the for­mer One Direc­tion star’s for­tune is up to the rules…

Fred Swaab Legacy

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Might a Receiv­er of a dis­tressed devel­op­ment project owe a duty of care to sub­se­quent own­ers of the lots when completed?

Upon tak­ing pos­ses­sion and con­trol of an incom­plete dis­tressed devel­op­ment asset, a secured financier will more often than not look to com­plete the project works itself in order to max­imise its recovery.This may neces­si­tate the financier assum­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for the build­ing con­tract in order to com­plete the project works or engag­ing a replace­ment…

Q&A with Swaab's new building and construction partner, Mark Glynn

Why did you choose Swaab?When I first met with Mary Digiglio, Swaab’s man­ag­ing part­ner and Helen Kow­al, part­ner con­struc­tion and stra­ta and there­after the broad­er Swaab lead­er­ship group, I felt an imme­di­ate align­ment with their val­ues and com­mit­ment to client service.Our moral com­pass­es were aligned, and this was the most impor­tant fac­tor in my…