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Trans­port & Logis­tics — 2012 Mid-Year Round-Up and Outlook

In Brief Our Trans­port & Logis­tics Team’s round-up high­lights devel­op­ments in trans­port reg­u­la­tion that affect every­one, includ­ing the pro­posed imple­men­ta­tion of uni­form ​‘chain of respon­si­bil­i­ty’ laws nation­al­ly and the con­tro­ver­sial new ​‘safe rates’ legislation. We are half way through 2012 and it remains a busy agen­da for trans­port and logis­tics reg­u­la­tors and enforcers…

Think twice before dis­miss­ing employ­ees on Work­ers’ Compensation 

In Brief Employ­ers seek­ing to ter­mi­nate an employ­ee on Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion with­in the pro­ba­tion­ary peri­od should take note of a recent deci­sion of Fair Work Aus­tralia which clar­i­fies how an employ­ee’s peri­od of con­tin­u­ous ser­vice is cal­cu­lat­ed, and high­lights the legal obsta­cles involved in ter­mi­nat­ing their employment.  How frus­trat­ing is it when an…

Pub­lish­ing wind­ing up notices — avoid­ing dupli­ca­tion of costs

In Brief Changes to the way most cor­po­rate insol­ven­cy notices have to be pub­lished came into effect on 1 July 2012. The Supreme Court of New South Wales has pro­vid­ed some guid­ance about how par­ties can avoid the cost of hav­ing to pub­lish notice of any appli­ca­tion to wind up a com­pa­ny on…

Pro­tect your­self with a Con­fi­den­tial­i­ty Agreement

In Brief One of the first con­sid­er­a­tions with any type of new ven­ture is how to pro­tect your busi­ness, valu­able idea or con­cept if you need to dis­close it to others. When is a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ment needed? If you need to dis­close your valu­able busi­ness infor­ma­tion or ideas to a poten­tial part­ner, advis­er or investor…

High Court rules on Octaviar 

In brief — Octaviar deci­sion con­firms return to stability The 1 Sep­tem­ber 2010 High Court deci­sion in Pub­lic Trustee of Queens­land v Fortress Cred­it Cor­po­ra­tion (Aus) 11 Pty Ltd [2010] HCA 29 con­firms a return to sta­bil­i­ty in the long accept­ed prac­tices sur­round­ing reg­is­tra­tion and noti­fi­ca­tion of changes to charges over com­pa­ny property. Last year…

Are health records pro­tect­ed by copyright?

In brief — Health records and copyright On 4 May 2010 the Fed­er­al Court of Aus­tralia held that copy­right did not sub­sist in a num­ber of health records cre­at­ed and main­tained by a health care provider. There­fore, they were not an asset of the business. The health records were health sum­ma­ry sheets, con­sul­ta­tion notes, refer­ral…

ACCC takes ear­ly action on car­bon price claims — make sure you don’t make your­self a target

The car­bon price com­menced in Aus­tralia on 1 July 2012. As part of the new régime, the gov­ern­ment has direct­ed the ACCC to under­take a com­pli­ance and enforce­ment role in rela­tion to claims made about the impact of the car­bon price. The ACCC’s focus is to ensure busi­ness­es do not make mis­lead­ing…

BRW Fea­ture — Can­cer made Swaab a stronger firm

BRW takes a close look at Swaab’s jour­ney over the last few years with the absence of founder and chair­man Fred Swaab and the estab­lished suc­ces­sion plan that facil­i­tat­ed Swaab’s con­tin­ued suc­cess.Read the full arti­cle…

Com­pet­ing inter­ests con­tin­ue to fight over the future of the Min­er­als Resource Rent Tax (MRRT)

Last week’s arti­cle The Min­er­als Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) — Will it be debat­ed at next year’s tax sum­mit? high­light­ed the con­fu­sion around the antic­i­pat­ed imple­men­ta­tion of the fed­er­al government’s pro­posed Min­er­als Resource Rent Tax. The pro­posed tax con­tin­ues to draw vocal crit­i­cism from a num­ber of quar­ters. Small­er min­ing com­pa­nies have…

The right to request flex­i­ble work­ing arrange­ments fol­low­ing a peri­od of parental leave

Employ­ers should be aware that employ­ees have the right to request a change in work­ing arrange­ments to assist the employ­ee in car­ing for a child. Such a request is often made while an employ­ee is on parental leave and is often a request to return to work in a part time capac­i­ty. The employ­er…

Divid­ing the larg­er and small­er assets of the mar­riage or rela­tion­ship after divorce or break-up

In Brief — Divid­ing the assets of a relationship It is impor­tant to obtain a val­u­a­tion for large assets and to bear in mind any future lia­bil­i­ty which may attach to them. For the divi­sion of small­er assets, it is gen­er­al­ly bet­ter to agree on a divi­sion with your ex-part­ner when­ev­er pos­si­ble, avoid­ing…

The right to inspect a Will with­out a court order and pri­or to pro­bate being granted

In brief — Access to Wills under the Suc­ces­sion Act Since the Suc­ces­sion Act was intro­duced in NSW, pro­vi­sions have been in place enti­tling cer­tain peo­ple to inspect Wills. This is the case pri­or to pro­bate being grant­ed and with­out a court order. Any­one hold­ing a Will on behalf of a deceased per­son must…

In-house coun­sel and legal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege — Are your inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions protected?

In a recent sur­vey of in-house coun­sel, well over half of respon­dents iden­ti­fied legal priv­i­lege as the biggest prob­lem area they faced in their role. What is legal pro­fes­sion­al privilege? Legal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege, also known as client legal priv­i­lege, is defined as a legal right that pro­tects from dis­clo­sure con­fi­den­tial com­mu­ni­ca­tion between a lawyer and…

EU court clar­i­fies trade mark infringe­ment in use of Google AdWords

A recent Euro­pean court deci­sion has caused Euro­pean com­pa­nies to think care­ful­ly about the type of key­words they use in their Google AdWords campaign. Por­tak­abin Ltd v Pri­mak­abin BV In Por­tak­abin Ltd v Pri­mak­abin BV, the court found that the use of a reg­is­tered trade mark as a key­word search term infringed the trade mark owner’s…

Paid parental leave leg­is­la­tion, unpaid leave and flex­i­ble work arrange­ments under the Fair Work Act

In brief — paid parental leave A paid parental leave scheme was intro­duced into par­lia­ment on 12 May 2010. It passed the Sen­ate on 17 June 2010. The scheme com­mences on 1 Jan­u­ary 2011. Con­tin­u­ing enti­tle­ment to unpaid leave and flex­i­ble work arrangements The Fair Work Act enshrines the right of employ­ees who give…