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Watch­ing the footy from the cloud

Optus TV Now – Fed­er­al Court Copy­right Judg­ment Stands In brief Optus’ footy wars over its ​‘TV Now’ ser­vice have been brought to an end with the refusal of its appli­ca­tion seek­ing leave to appeal to the High Court. Our Com­mer­cial and IP & Tech­nol­o­gy Team looks at what this means for providers…

New Work­place Laws — Fair Work Amend­ment Bill 2012 

In Brief After being recent­ly passed by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Fair Work Amend­ment Bill 2012 is cur­rent­ly being con­sid­ered by the Sen­ate’s Edu­ca­tion, Employ­ment and Work­places Rela­tions Leg­isla­tive Com­mit­tee, with a report­ing date of 26 Novem­ber 2012. The Bill was draft­ed in response to the Fair Work Act Review com­plet­ed…

Sur­veil­lance in the Workplace

In Brief New South Wales is one of the few Aus­tralian states which has ded­i­cat­ed leg­is­la­tion address­ing sur­veil­lance in the work­place. The Work­place Sur­veil­lance Act 2005 (NSW) (the Act) deals with cam­era, com­put­er and track­ing sur­veil­lance. The Act pro­vides that in some cir­cum­stances employ­ers can sur­veil employ­ees with their knowl­edge (overt…

Ad reg­u­la­tor deter­mines that social media cam­paigns must com­ply with ad requirements

In brief The Adver­tis­ing Stan­dards Bureau, the adver­tis­ing reg­u­la­tor, has found that the VB Face­book pages are adver­tise­ments and sub­ject to the AANA Code of Ethics. Our Com­mer­cial and IP & Tech­nol­o­gy Team looks at the recent deci­sions of the ABS and how this affects busi­ness­es with any social media pres­ence…

Finance Month­ly names Alis­tair Jaque ​“Deal Mak­er of the Year 2012”

Finance Month­ly has named Swaab cor­po­rate part­ner Alis­tair Jaque ​“Deal Mak­er of the Year 2012” for advis­ing pub­li­cal­ly list­ed, IT solu­tions com­pa­ny UXC in rela­tion to the acqui­si­tion of Aus­tralian spe­cial­ist SAP con­sult­ing firm, Stream, by their SAP soft­ware and ser­vices inte­gra­tor sub­sidiary, Oxy­gen Busi­ness Solutions. The Finance Month­ly ​“Deal…

Swaab joins the con­ver­sa­tion on work­place diver­si­ty in lawyers weekly

Swaab CEO, Bron­wyn Pott has fea­tured in Lawyers Week­ly on work­place diver­si­ty and flex­i­ble work arrange­ments. Bron­wyn dis­cuss­es her man­age­ment approach to flex­i­ble work­ing arrange­ments and the need for them to be mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial as well as practical. Swaab has a num­ber of tai­lored work arrange­ments in place, with 30 per­cent of…

Swaab takes out ALP­MA inno­va­tion award

Swaab Attor­neys has tak­en out the 2012 Aus­tralasian Legal Prac­tice Man­age­ment Asso­ci­a­tion (ALP­MA) Inno­va­tion Award. ALP­MA award­ed the firm for their abil­i­ty to ​“always do things a bit dif­fer­ent­ly” and for ​“being at the fore­front of man­age­ment think­ing”. The award recog­nised the fir­m’s achieve­ments on both an employ­ee and prac­tice man­age­ment front…

Com­mon­wealth Penal­ty Units to Rise by end 2012

The mon­e­tary amount of penal­ties for offences under Com­mon­wealth leg­is­la­tion are set to increase sig­nif­i­cant­ly by the end of 2012 under leg­is­la­tion recent­ly passed by Parliament. The leg­is­la­tion imple­ment­ing the increase is con­tained in the Crimes Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Seri­ous Drugs, Iden­ti­ty Crime and Oth­er Mea­sures) Bill 2012, which was assent­ed to…

Cheap­er online option for patent applications

IP Aus­trali­a’s Patent Office has intro­duced an online facil­i­ty that now gives patent appli­cants and own­ers an easy and secure sys­tem for the elec­tron­ic fil­ing of patent appli­ca­tions and the ongo­ing man­age­ment of those appli­ca­tions and any grant­ed patents. Appli­cants (or their patent attor­neys) can now apply online for: a pro­vi­sion­al appli­ca­tion…

Cor­po­rate update

In Brief The cor­po­rate team dis­cuss recent devel­op­ments con­cern­ing side deals and indem­ni­ties in com­mer­cial con­tracts as well as direc­tors’ lia­bil­i­ty changes in NSW, changes in Work Health and Safe­ty Laws and changes to cor­po­rate penalties. Side Deals Adi­cho v Dankei­th Homes Pty Ltd [2012] NSW­CA 316 Any side deals and col­lat­er­al con­tracts should be…

Can an employ­er ban tat­toos in the workplace?

In Brief The vis­i­ble tat­toos that indi­vid­u­als adorn their bod­ies with can become the sub­ject of dis­cus­sion in the work­place. There is a diver­si­ty of opin­ion as to whether tat­toos are a pos­i­tive, neg­a­tive or neu­tral pres­ence in the work­place. This arti­cle dis­cuss­es whether an employ­er can pre­vent tat­toos in the workplace. Tat­too­ing…

Employ­ee rights when your employ­er becomes insolvent

In Brief In Octo­ber 2012 the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment intro­duced the Fair Enti­tle­ments Guar­an­tee Bill 2012 to for­malise by leg­is­la­tion, what has to date oper­at­ed as the Gen­er­al Employ­ee Enti­tle­ments and Redun­dan­cy Scheme (GEERS). The Bill is like­ly to become law in ear­ly 2013. This arti­cle dis­cuss­es who is eli­gi­ble for finan­cial…

My part­ner has passed away with­out leav­ing a Will what should I do?

In Brief Where a per­son dies with­out a valid Will they are said to have died ​‘intes­tate’. In these cir­cum­stances the Supreme Court will grant Let­ters of Admin­is­tra­tion instead of the Grant of Pro­bate. This arti­cle dis­cuss­es who may apply for Let­ters of Admin­is­tra­tion and the pro­ce­dure involved. Let­ters of Administration Where a per­son dies…

The Scab Sign Incident

In Brief On 7 Novem­ber 2012 Jus­tice Jes­sup of the Fed­er­al Court of Aus­tralia gave his judg­ment in Con­struc­tion, Forestry, Min­ing and Ener­gy Union v BHP Coal Pty Ltd (No 3) [2012] FCA 1218. The case was a claim under the gen­er­al pro­tec­tion pro­vi­sions of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (the Act) and…

Fed­er­al Anti Dis­crim­i­na­tion Leg­is­la­tion Harmonised

In Brief The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment recent­ly released an expo­sure draft of its pro­posed Human Rights and Anti-Dis­crim­i­na­tion Bill 2012 (the Bill). The Bill har­monis­es the cur­rent five pieces of Fed­er­al anti dis­crim­i­na­tion leg­is­la­tion: Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act 1975 (Cth), Sex Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act 1984 (Cth), Dis­abil­i­ty Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act 1992 (Cth), Age Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act…