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Pro­posed new rules for pay­ing dividends

In Brief If passed in Par­lia­ment, the Cor­po­ra­tions Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Dereg­u­la­to­ry and Oth­er Mea­sures) Bill 2014 may sim­pli­fy the process of declar­ing and pay­ing div­i­dends and reduce com­pli­ance costs for SME busi­ness­es. In this arti­cle we take a look at the cur­rent and pro­posed new rules for pay­ing dividends. Introduction If passed in…

Award Wage Increase — What do I do?

In Brief With the new tax year upon us, for many busi­ness­es, work­ers com­pen­sa­tion pol­i­cy peri­ods turn-over and bud­gets are being finalised. Amongst all this activ­i­ty, the increase in award wages and the nation­al min­i­mum wage, can be missed, which can cause headaches for many busi­ness­es. This arti­cle high­lights what busi­ness­es…

2014 Swaab Promotions

Swaab is pleased to announce that Annette Wil­son has been pro­mot­ed to part­ner and Wendy Con­ce­icao to senior associate. Annette has been with Swaab for over 4 years as a spe­cial coun­sel in the Fam­i­ly Law team. Annette is an Accred­it­ed Spe­cial­ist in Fam­i­ly Law by the Law Soci­ety of New South Wales…

Extend­ing a con­ven­ing peri­od before it expires — rel­e­vant principles

In Brief The admin­is­tra­tor of a com­pa­ny under admin­is­tra­tion must con­vene a meet­ing of the com­pa­ny’s cred­i­tors with­in the con­ven­ing peri­od set out in sec­tion 439A(5) of the Cor­po­ra­tions Act 2001 (Cth) or as extend­ed by the Court under sec­tion 439A(6). The courts have shown a will­ing­ness to extend the con­ven­ing peri­od pro­vid­ed there…

Prac­tice note: Approval of pro­vi­sion­al liq­uida­tor’s remuneration

In Brief In the Mat­ter of CB Con­struc­tions (NSW) Pty Ltd [2014] NSWSC 913 is a recent deci­sion of Jus­tice Black which pro­vides a time­ly reminder of the mat­ters which need to be addressed when seek­ing court approval for the remu­ner­a­tion of a pro­vi­sion­al liq­uida­tor under sec­tion 473(2) of the Cor­po­ra­tions Act 2001 (Cth)…

Unfair dis­missal and the high income threshold

In Brief In this arti­cle our employ­ment team pro­vides details on the high income thresh­old that increased from 1 July this year. The increase high­lights the impor­tance of close­ly review­ing and assess­ing what the employ­ee’s actu­al earn­ings are when faced with a claim for unfair dismissal. The oppor­tu­ni­ty for a ter­mi­nat­ed employ­ee to make an…

Swaab senior asso­ciate Susan Walsh fea­tured in Smart­com­pa­ny on Apple’s trademark

Swaab senior asso­ciate, Susan Walsh, has fea­tured in a Smart­Com­pa­ny arti­cle cov­er­ing Apple’s right to trade­mark its flag­ship store design in Europe. In the arti­cle, Susan high­lights the dif­fer­ences in Aus­trali­a’s trade­mark régime and what hur­dles com­pa­nies have to over­come if they wish to trade­mark a store lay­out in Australia. > Read the article…

NABERS Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion: Don’t get caught on the wrong side of the fence 

In Brief With the com­mer­cial prop­er­ty mar­ket heat­ing up, if you are a ven­dor or a lessor you should ensure that your build­ing has appro­pri­ate NABERS cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in place. The Com­mer­cial Build­ing Dis­clo­sure (CBD) Pro­gram requires ven­dors and land­lords of dis­clo­sure-affect­ed build­ings to obtain a Build­ing Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy Cer­tifi­cate (BEEC), before the build­ing goes…

Lawyers week­ly fea­tures swaab’s pro­mo­tion of one new partner

Swaab’s pro­mo­tion of Annette Wil­son to part­ner has been fea­tured in Lawyers Week­ly. Annette has been with Swaab for over 4 years as a spe­cial coun­sel and is an Accred­it­ed Spe­cial­ist in Fam­i­ly Law by the Law Soci­ety of New South Wales. READ THE ARTICLE…

Paul Bren­nan fea­tured in Lawyers Weekly

Swaab part­ner Paul Bren­nan has been fea­tured in the Lawyers Week­ly Part­ner Pro­file. Paul talks about his major career high­lights and what he likes about being a lawyer, ​“Being able to roll up your sleeves and make a deal hap­pen, or reach­ing an ami­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion in a com­plex dispute.” > READ THE ARTICLE…

Adverse Action claims avail­able despite lengthy absence from work

In Brief The Fed­er­al Cir­cuit Court has dis­pelled any lin­ger­ing doubts as whether or not employ­ers can safe­ly ter­mi­nate employ­ment fol­low­ing a lengthy absence from work, and with­out poten­tial­ly fac­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion claims aris­ing from the termination. The Facts This issue arose in the con­text of ter­mi­na­tion of an absent employ­ee, a Mr McGar­va, who…

Legal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege and inves­ti­ga­tion reports

In Brief A recent deci­sion of the Fed­er­al Cir­cuit Court in an adverse action claim, has served to remind us of the pit­falls of lawyers car­ry­ing out inves­tiga­tive work for clients and then giv­ing them legal advice based on their inves­ti­ga­tion. In this case legal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege was held to have been waived…

Request for Flex­i­ble Work­ing Arrangements 

In Brief When com­pa­nies receive employ­ee requests for flex­i­ble work­ing arrange­ments, under­stand­ing if they can accom­mo­date their employ­ee’s need for flex­i­bil­i­ty, whilst still main­tain­ing their busi­ness and client inter­ests can be a dif­fi­cult bal­anc­ing act. In a busi­ness envi­ron­ment where there are com­pet­ing inter­ests between employ­ers, employ­ees and clients it’s dif­fi­cult to strike the…

Swaab announced final­ist in ALP­MA thought lead­er­ship awards

Swaab is pleased to announce that it was named a final­ist in the ALP­MA Thought Lead­er­ship Awards for the devel­op­ment of the ​“USB sep­a­ra­tion sur­vival kit”. This Sur­vival Kit is dis­crete­ly and inno­v­a­tive­ly stored on a flash dri­ve USB stick and is aimed at pro­vid­ing peo­ple going through the dif­fi­cul­ties of a rela­tion­ship or…

Swaab in BBC arti­cle on ​‘Should anti-tat­too dis­crim­i­na­tion be illegal?’

Swaab employ­ment part­ner Richard Ott­ley’s arti­cle on ​‘Can an employ­er ban tat­toos in the work­place?’ has been fea­tured in BBC news mag­a­zine online. Richard’s arti­cle dis­cuss­es whether an employ­er can pre­vent tat­toos and high­lights dif­fer­ent inter­na­tion­al approach­es to tat­toos in the work­place.> READ THE ARTICLE…