Search

Employ­ers beware of act­ing against employ­ees with fam­i­ly responsibilities

In Brief Most busi­ness own­ers are very sym­pa­thet­ic to their staff mem­bers’ oblig­a­tions to their fam­i­lies and gen­er­al­ly except that emer­gen­cies arise which may require an employ­ee to leave the work­place. How­ev­er, it can be very frus­trat­ing when this aris­es at a busy time or fre­quent­ly over a short peri­od. In a recent case…

Swaab Update: Staff Mobil­i­ty and Data Protection

We recent­ly sur­veyed a sam­ple of our client base across a num­ber of indus­tries on their organ­i­sa­tions’ atti­tudes towards staff mobil­i­ty and alter­na­tive work­ing arrange­ments. With so many of an organisation’s staff work­ing remote­ly, we were keen to dis­cov­er how they pro­tect the pri­va­cy, con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and main­tain the secu­ri­ty of their organisation’s…

Swaab announces senior asso­ciate promotion

Swaab is pleased to announce the pro­mo­tion of Georgina King to the role of Senior Asso­ciate in their esteemed lit­i­ga­tion team. Georgina’s excel­lent legal skills cou­pled with her desire to pro­vide excep­tion­al client ser­vice have seen her become an invalu­able part of the lit­i­ga­tion group. Swaab CEO Bron­wyn Pott prais­es Georgina’s…

Swaab wel­comes new grad­u­ate lawyer

Swaab is delight­ed to wel­come Tim Hard­wick as a grad­u­ate solic­i­tor in our lit­i­ga­tion team. Tim is the first in a series of recent grad­u­ate hires under­tak­en by Swaab. Pri­or to his arrival at Swaab, Tim has gained expe­ri­ence in a broad range of cor­po­rate and pri­vate client work, includ­ing suc­ces­sion act claims, wills…

Estate plan­ning and super­an­nu­a­tion — How to have the last laugh

In brief Super­an­nu­a­tion is a fun­ny thing. It is yours, but you can’t have it yet. It gets paid out when you die, but the mon­ey may not go to whom you would like. You are basi­cal­ly sav­ing all your life for some­thing you might nev­er receive and you prob­a­bly don’t even…

Swaab wel­comes new solic­i­tor to Lit­i­ga­tion Team

Swaab is delight­ed to wel­come new solic­i­tor Cate­ri­na Meduri to their high­ly regard­ed lit­i­ga­tion team. Cate­ri­na com­plet­ed a com­bined law and busi­ness degree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy Syd­ney in 2011, and has prac­tised as a solic­i­tor since then in both lit­i­ga­tion and trans­ac­tion­al work. She has expe­ri­ence in con­trac­tu­al dis­putes, includ­ing claims…

Dis­pens­ing with awards — Can you pay employ­ees a lump sum amount that meets your award obligations?

The chal­lenge in busi­ness to keep up with changes and awards can be par­tic­u­lar­ly problematic. Many busi­ness own­ers don’t have a full under­stand­ing of what awards apply to their staff and even less of an idea of what oblig­a­tions those awards con­tain. This occurs because in real­i­ty busi­ness own­ers are busy…

The oper­a­tion of priv­i­lege to advice giv­en to a stra­ta own­ers corporation

Ques­tion: can an own­ers cor­po­ra­tion claim legal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege over doc­u­ments in con­nec­tion with legal advice on its books and records as against a lot owner? The answer is yes, to an extent, but to what extent you may ask? The short answer is that it depends on the nature of the…

Pow­er of Attor­ney — Changes are here!

In Brief A pow­er of attor­ney is like insur­ance. If you have not planned for the worst when the unex­pect­ed occurs you might find that you, your legal and finan­cial affairs and your fam­i­ly and friends all suf­fer to a much greater degree than nec­es­sary. Angela Har­vey, part­ner, and Euge Pow­er, solic­i­tor, pro­vide…

Swaab assists UXC with two strate­gic acquisitions

Swaab has advised UXC Lim­it­ed [UXC] on the acqui­si­tion of Key­stone Man­age­ment Solu­tions, Aus­trali­a’s largest reseller and ser­vices provider for Ser­vi­ceNow. Ser­vi­ceNow is the lead­ing glob­al provider of cloud-based solutions.  The Wall Street Jour­nal has named Ser­vi­ceNow on its ​“Next Big Thing” list for two con­sec­u­tive years. They have had…

Con­sul­ta­tion about changes to reg­u­lar ros­ters and ordi­nary hours of work

In Brief As of 1 Jan­u­ary 2014, chang­ing the staff ros­ter has become a more com­plex process with the intro­duc­tion of amend­ments to the Fair Work Act 2009. A New Provision Ros­ter flex­i­bil­i­ty can be key in ensur­ing busi­ness effi­cien­cy in the face of chang­ing oper­a­tional require­ments, sea­son­al fluc­tu­a­tions and the occa­sion­al unfore­seen cir­cum­stances…

Con­tro­ver­sial com­care case draws a line for work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion claims

In Brief In a deci­sion which has divid­ed legal opin­ion, the High Court has made a rul­ing as to what is meant by the expres­sion ​“in the course of employ­ment”. The High Court con­sid­ered this expres­sion in the case of Com­care v PVYW [2013] HCA 41 in the con­text of a work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion claim brought by…

Ten­ants beware — High Court con­firms liq­uida­tors of land­lord com­pa­nies can dis­claim leases

In Brief The High Court has recent­ly con­firmed that the liq­uida­tors of a land­lord com­pa­ny are able to dis­claim a lease, with the effect of ter­mi­nat­ing the lease­hold inter­est of the tenant. The High Court deci­sion of Will­mott Grow­ers Group Inc v Will­mott Forests Ltd (Receivers and Man­agers Appoint­ed) (In Liq­ui­da­tion) con­cerned an appeal to…

Swaab appoints new Man­ag­ing Partner

Today Swaab announced that it has returned to a man­ag­ing part­ner lead­er­ship struc­ture and has appoint­ed Swaab part­ner Mary Digiglio to take on the role. As Swaab’s prop­er­ty prac­tice group leader, Mary is an inte­gral part of the fir­m’s vision, ethos, val­ues and cul­ture. At just 38, Mary has built a suc­cess­ful prac­tice…

Lawyers Week­ly fea­tures Swaab’s appoint­ment of new part­ner Paul Brennan

Swaab’s appoint­ment of new part­ner Paul Bren­nan has been fea­tured in Lawyers Week­ly. Join­ing the firm on April 28, Paul will lead Swaab’s new con­struc­tion and engi­neer­ing group. Read the article…