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Tax Incen­tives for Investors in Ear­ly Stage Invest­ment Companies

“Aus­tralians are renowned for their smart ideas, but we often fail to back them and turn them into com­mer­cial real­i­ties.Only 9% of Aus­tralian small to medi­um sized busi­ness­es brought a new idea to mar­ket in 2012 – 13, com­pared to 19% in the top five OECD coun­tries.We will pro­vide new tax…

Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law trumps Choice of Law Clause

In March 2016, the Fed­er­al Court found that the refund pol­i­cy of Amer­i­can on-line gam­ing com­pa­ny Valve Cor­po­ra­tion (Valve) (incor­po­rat­ed in Wash­ing­ton State, hav­ing no Aus­tralian office or pres­ence) vio­lat­ed the Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law (ACL). Valve’s web­site stat­ed (in all caps) ​“ALL STEAM FEES ARE PAYABLE IN ADVANCE AND ARE…

Abo­li­tion of cer­tain tax­es in NSW

In Brief After years of delays, it seems that the New South Wales Gov­ern­ment will on 1 July 2016 final­ly make good on its promis­es to abol­ish a raft of duties. Mar­ketable Secu­ri­ties Duty, Busi­ness Assets Duty and Mort­gage Duty, all pre­vi­ous­ly col­lect­ed by the Office of State Rev­enue, will no longer…

The What, How and Why of Put and Call options

In Brief Put and call options are a use­ful way of allow­ing par­ties to enter into an agree­ment to sell or acquire land at a future point in time, requir­ing min­i­mum upfront com­mit­ment. In the most sim­plis­tic of terms, rights grant­ed under a put and call option are a future right to com­pel a sell­er…

A Glob­al Meet­ing of the Brands

In Brief Last month, I rep­re­sent­ed Swaab Attor­neys at the 138th Annu­al Meet­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Trade­mark Asso­ci­a­tion (INTA) in Orlan­do, Flori­da – the home of famous theme parks includ­ing Dis­ney­world and Uni­ver­sal Stu­dios – busi­ness­es who clear­ly val­ue a well-devel­oped and well-pro­tect­ed brand. Over the course of the con­fer­ence it became…

The com­plex­i­ty of employ­ment law in Aus­tralia has no future in the ​‘future’

When we engage staff now we do so in an envi­ron­ment where uncer­tain­ty and dimin­ish­ing employ­ment secu­ri­ty is the new norm for all. This reflects the greater com­pe­ti­tion fac­ing busi­ness­es both from tech­nol­o­gy and the glob­alised envi­ron­ment. Yet it is inter­est­ing how so many peo­ple believe that staff can be…

Well­ness — the key to good health in law

At Swaab Attor­neys, we want to set the bench­mark for bring­ing good peo­ple togeth­er. We say it on our web­site. We want Swaab to be a work­place they not only enjoy, but which inspires great work and per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al growth. But, as Man­ag­ing Part­ner, I want to do more than talk. I under­stand…

Employ­ment law changes from 1 July 2016 

In Brief It is a con­stant chal­lenge for employ­ers to remain up date with changes in the dynam­ic envi­ron­ment of employ­ment law. This arti­cle looks at a num­ber of impor­tant changes in this area which came into effect on 1 July 2016.As well as increas­es to min­i­mum wages and the ​“high income thresh­old”…

Pay­ing Expens­es after Separation

Say you and your spouse/​partner sep­a­rate. There may or may not be chil­dren of the rela­tion­ship. Pri­or to your sep­a­ra­tion either or both of you worked and your incomes were used to pay the fam­i­ly expens­es. After sep­a­ra­tion you moved out. Who now pays the expens­es you used to pay…

Inher­i­tances in Fam­i­ly Law

Say you have recent­ly sep­a­rat­ed and no prop­er­ty or finan­cial set­tle­ment has yet been finalised. You have a very elder­ly great aunt who is wealthy and to whom you have always been close. Your for­mer de fac­to part­ner or spouse now wants you and/​or your great aunt to pro­duce the Will…

Cannabis and Fam­i­ly Law

Cannabis. Mar­i­jua­na. Pot, Dope. Mull. Yarn­di. These are all names for the most com­mon­ly used ille­gal drug in Aus­tralia[1]. Pur­suant to the Depart­ment of Health’s gen­er­al fact­sheets on cannabis[2], some of the phys­i­cal effects of using mar­i­jua­na may include drowsi­ness, tem­po­rary loss of mem­o­ry, risk tak­ing behav­iour and an impaired…

ASX is mak­ing list­ing more dif­fi­cult for SMEs 

In Brief An ASX Media Release on 12 May 2016 set out a num­ber of changes, both imme­di­ate and pro­posed, to the admis­sion require­ments to the offi­cial ASX list. The changes are intend­ed to ​“main­tain and strength­en the rep­u­ta­tion” of the ASX. How­ev­er one of the side effects is that the…

A Mes­si Patch­work of Image Rights

In Brief In the wake of inter­na­tion­al foot­ball star Lionel Mes­si’s recent fine and jail sen­tence asso­ci­at­ed with the earn­ings from his image rights, some may be curi­ous as to whether image rights exist in Aus­tralia. In sim­ple terms, image rights as they apply in Europe or the USA do…

Min­imis­ing employ­er redun­dan­cy obligations

A pro­vi­sion exists in the Fair Work Act, which enables employ­ers to apply to the Fair Work Com­mis­sion to min­imise their statu­to­ry redun­dan­cy oblig­a­tions to staff whom they retrench. The basis for such an appli­ca­tion (which is made under s. 120 of the Act) is that the employ­er has found…

Penal­ties in Contracts 

Penal­ties in Contracts The basic prin­ci­ple of Aus­tralian con­tract law is free­dom of con­tract. How­ev­er, like free­dom in gen­er­al, free­dom of con­tract is sub­ject to limitations. One such lim­i­ta­tion is that a pro­vi­sion in a con­tract that seeks to impose a penal­ty on a con­tract­ing par­ty, is not enforceable. What is a penalty? In its basic…