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Liq­uida­tors — exam­in­ing pre-exam­i­na­tion steps

In Brief Exam­i­na­tions under sec­tions 596A and 596B of the Cor­po­ra­tions Act 2001 (Cth) are an impor­tant method for liq­uida­tors to assess the prospects of suc­cess and basis for bring­ing court pro­ceed­ings as part of the liq­ui­da­tion. How­ev­er, giv­en the cost and time involved in con­duct­ing an exam­i­na­tion, it is often…

Mr Process Serv­er wants to con­nect with you…

In Brief Recent­ly the Irish High Court ruled that court doc­u­ments could be served via a per­son­’s LinkedIn account. The wide­spread adop­tion and active engage­ment with social media sites, includ­ing LinkedIn, Face­book and Twit­ter, facil­i­tate an unprece­dent­ed lev­el of con­nec­tiv­i­ty in Aus­tralia and abroad. Does this mean that we can now also…

Test­ing the water — does a builder owe a duty of care to an Own­ers Corporation?

In Brief In an impor­tant deci­sion which has ram­i­fi­ca­tions for Own­ers Cor­po­ra­tions, the High Court has recent­ly held that a builder did not owe a duty of care to an Own­ers Cor­po­ra­tion to avoid caus­ing it to suf­fer eco­nom­ic loss from latent defects in com­mon property.  The Facts Brook­field Mul­ti­plex Ltd v Own­ers Cor­po­ra­tion Stra­ta Plan…

Swaab wel­comes new Senior Asso­ciate in Cor­po­rate Law

Edei Ledet has joined Swaab as a senior asso­ciate in the Cor­po­rate Law depart­ment. Edei has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in cor­po­rate merg­ers and acqui­si­tions, com­pli­ance and cor­po­rate gov­er­nance, and gen­er­al cor­po­rate advice. Edei’s expe­ri­ence cov­ers both the US and Aus­tralian mar­ket hav­ing most recent­ly worked for Minter Elli­son Lawyers and AXA Aus­tralia Limited…

They just don’t get on… but what can I do?

In Brief It can be a real­ly dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion for an employ­er when two staff mem­bers sim­ply do not get on. Nei­ther is nec­es­sar­i­ly at fault or, alter­nate­ly, both of them are. But what can an employ­er do? An employ­er is not able to make peo­ple like one anoth­er and their…

Land­lords beware — Incen­tive claw-back pro­vi­sions deemed to be penal­ty clauses

In Brief The recent Supreme Court of Queens­land deci­sion of GWC Prop­er­ty Group Pty Ltd v Hig­gin­son & Ors affirms the long-held but (until now) untest­ed fear that the ubiq­ui­tous claw-back pro­vi­sions which accom­pa­ny most incen­tive pro­vi­sions may very well con­sti­tute a penal­ty clause. What is a penal­ty pro­vi­sion? The mod­ern law of penal­ty pro­vi­sions…

“Who real­ly brings the game into disrepute?”

In Brief A pub­lic spat. A drunk­en fall. A scathing com­ment. Pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes, like many of us, occa­sion­al­ly do care­less and reck­less things.  Unlike many of us, how­ev­er, pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes are often fined exceed­ing­ly large amounts of mon­ey, sus­pend­ed or ter­mi­nat­ed from their employ­ment for doing these things. And you can almost be…

Swaab appoints new lit­i­ga­tion partner

Swaab is pleased to announce that Marc Bad­dams has been pro­mot­ed to part­ner in the lit­i­ga­tion team. Marc has been with Swaab for over 6 years start­ing as an Asso­ciate in 2008. Marc spe­cialis­es in com­mer­cial lit­i­ga­tion and dis­pute res­o­lu­tion and has expe­ri­ence in fed­er­al and state courts, tri­bunals and alter­na­tive dis­pute…

2015 to be anoth­er excit­ing year for Swaab! 

2014 was a busy year, dur­ing which we imple­ment­ed struc­tur­al change, pro­mot­ed a num­ber of our own peo­ple and secured some new part­ners to join us. In 2015 we are look­ing for­ward to more pro­mo­tions, fur­ther strate­gic growth to bol­ster and com­ple­ment our exist­ing prac­tice areas and a focus on using tech­nol­o­gy to inno­vate…

Lawyers week­ly fea­tures Swaab’s pro­mo­tion of one new partner

Swaab’s pro­mo­tion of Marc Bad­dams to part­ner has been fea­tured in Lawyers Weekly.  Marc has been with Swaab for over 6 years start­ing as an Asso­ciate in 2008. Marc spe­cialis­es in com­mer­cial lit­i­ga­tion and dis­pute res­o­lu­tion and has expe­ri­ence in fed­er­al and state courts, tri­bunals and alter­na­tive dis­pute res­o­lu­tion process­es includ­ing medi­a­tion.>…

Swaab wel­comes new grad­u­ate lawyer

Swaab is delight­ed to wel­come Nicholas Mark as a grad­u­ate solic­i­tor in our cor­po­rate team. Nicholas will be under­tak­ing Swaab’s grad­u­ate pro­gram, includ­ing three six month rotations.  Nicholas was admit­ted to prac­tice as a solic­i­tor in the Supreme Court of NSW in Octo­ber 2013. He has since worked in small and top tier…

War­wick Ryan fea­tured in Smart­Com­pa­ny on employ­ee under­pay­ment case at two sushi franchises

War­wick Ryan has been fea­tured in Smart­Com­pa­ny on a recent under­pay­ment case involv­ing the Fair Work Ombuds­man and the oper­a­tor of two sushi franchises. The Fair Work Ombuds­man found out that Sushi Izu under­paid a South Kore­an back­pack­er more than $5000 over an 11-week peri­od after set­ting wages for her work­ers by ring­ing…

Redun­dan­cy… is it still a more con­ve­nient way of remov­ing a dif­fi­cult employee?

In Brief Remov­ing staff that are not per­form­ing can be a pro­tract­ed and con­vo­lut­ed process. For a long time, employ­ers have often seen redun­dan­cy as an avenue for side step­ping the var­i­ous disciplinary/​counselling sessions/​warnings that have to occur pri­or to an employ­ee being ter­mi­nat­ed for poor performance.  The beau­ty of the redun­dan­cy…

Swear­ing at a boss, is it always a sack­able offence?

In Brief In a recent deci­sion by the Fair Work Com­mis­sion, Deputy Pres­i­dent Wells found against the com­pa­ny that sum­mar­i­ly dis­missed an employ­ee for abus­ing the man­ag­ing direc­tor of the company.  The com­pa­ny was an SME and the man­ag­ing direc­tor and the garbage truck dri­ver were hav­ing a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion which got heat­ed…

Claims made by a per­son deprived of land title by fraud

In Brief In Aus­tralia, we use the Tor­rens sys­tem of land title. It is a cen­tral tenet of the Tor­rens sys­tem that it is a sys­tem of title by reg­is­tra­tion, not a sys­tem of reg­is­tra­tion of title. It is reg­is­tra­tion itself which vests title in a pro­pri­etor of land. Sec­tion 42(1) of the Real Prop­er­ty…