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Can you require an employ­ee to pro­vide med­ical evi­dence or attend a psy­chi­atric examination?

In Brief From time to time employ­ers will be faced with an employ­ee whose behav­iour sug­gests that they may have an under­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tion affect­ing their men­tal health. Behav­iours which may for exam­ple indi­cate depres­sion include: irri­tabil­i­ty, lack of con­cen­tra­tion, late­ness for work and unex­plained peri­ods of absence. Whilst there are…

Moon­light­ing employ­ees it can be dif­fi­cult to stop

In Brief There can be a num­ber of par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant rea­sons why employ­ers need to know whether an employ­ee is work­ing else­where and also the nature of that work.  In a recent deci­sion of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (Bril ‑v- Rex Aus­tralia Lim­it­ed), Vice Pres­i­dent Hatch­er found that the implied duty of fideli­ty…

Chris Shaw fea­tured in the ANZ Prop­er­ty Jour­nal on Bit­coin and the rise of crypto-currency

The dig­i­tal cur­ren­cy Bit­coin has cre­at­ed con­tro­ver­sy around the world with users and experts debat­ing whether it will shape the future of finance. In this arti­cle, prop­er­ty, plan­ning and projects part­ner Chris Shaw dis­cuss­es the chances of Bit­coin in the con­ser­v­a­tive prop­er­ty mar­ket. READ THE ARTICLE…

Swaab wel­comes two new graduates

Will Kingston and Adam Zwi will be under­tak­ing Swaab’s grad­u­ate pro­gram, includ­ing three six month rotations. Will has joined our Com­mer­cial and Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty team for his ini­tial rota­tion. Pri­or to his arrival at Swaab, Will sup­port­ed the in-house legal team at Hewlett-Packard. This pro­vid­ed him with a unique insight into the…

War­wick Ryan fea­tured in Star­tupS­mart on Uber’s ​‘inde­pen­dent con­trac­tor’ arrangements 

The Unit­ed Nations enti­ty for gen­der equal­i­ty has with­drawn from a part­ner­ship with online taxi-book­ing ser­vice Uber. The move comes after the plan was slammed by the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion for rein­forc­ing ​“struc­tur­al inequal­i­ty” in the wake of reports of pas­sen­ger assaults by Uber dri­vers. ​“By clas­si­fy­ing dri­vers as ​‘inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors’…

Unions are not above the law

In Brief In a very recent deci­sion of the Fed­er­al Court, the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia (MUA) had dam­ages award­ed against it of $482,000 and was ordered to pay a fine of $80,000 for refus­ing to allow a cou­ple to start work with a labour hire com­pa­ny. The labour hire com­pa­ny that refused to…

Good Will Hunt­ing: Estate Plan­ning Lessons from Hollywood

In Brief After being asked how her hus­band died, the icon­ic Robin Williams char­ac­ter, Mrs Doubt­fire, replied, ​“He was quite fond of the drink. It was the drink that killed him”. The response came, ​“How awful. He was an alco­holic?” Mrs Doubt­fire quick­ly cor­rect­ed, ​“No, he was hit by a Guin­ness…

Will ille­gal down­load­ers be forced to pay their dues and join the Club?

In Brief On 7 April 2015, the Fed­er­al Court of Aus­tralia hand­ed down a land­mark rul­ing involv­ing pira­cy and pri­va­cy, and inter­net account hold­ers with the Inter­net Ser­vice Providers (ISPs) involved may be feel­ing nervous.  Dal­las Buy­ers Club LLC v iiNet Lim­it­ed [2015] FCA 317 Dal­las Buy­ers Club LLC, the enti­ty claim­ing own­er­ship of the…

James Skel­ton announced final­ist in Lawyers Week­ly 30 under 30 awards

Swaab IP & Tech­nol­o­gy lawyer, James Skel­ton, has been announced a final­ist in the 2015 Lawyers Week­ly 30 under 30 awards in the Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty category. Now in its third year, ​‘30 Under 30’ sta­tus has been a spring­board for career pro­gres­sion for many young lawyers, giv­ing indus­try-wide recog­ni­tion for pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­tence while high­light­ing…

When can you direct employ­ees to under­go a med­ical examination?

In Brief One of the com­mon con­cerns that employ­ers have is whether their employ­ees are well enough to car­ry out their duties. This may be because an employ­ee is par­tic­u­lar­ly over­weight, may be dis­play­ing episodes of dizzy spells or is obvi­ous­ly labour­ing with a bad back or a sore knee.  The employ­er…

Bud­get pro­pos­als offer start-ups an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get their legal house in order from the start

In Brief The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment announced new mea­sures in its bud­get this week that will no doubt be wel­come to new ​‘start-up’ busi­ness­es. New busi­ness­es will be able to deduct start-up costs such as pro­fes­sion­al, legal and account­ing ser­vices from the 2015/2016 income year. This will replace the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion…

Rul­ing from the grave: What con­di­tions can you place on gifts in your will?

In Brief Some peo­ple find it hard to ​‘let go’. In 1993, a res­i­dent of San Anto­nio in the Unit­ed States passed away, leav­ing his house and $30,000 to his wife. How­ev­er, this was not as warm a mat­ri­mo­ni­al ges­ture as it first appeared. The hus­band had includ­ed a clause in his will…

When a choice is not a choice

In Brief As a busi­ness own­er you can choose whether or not to pay staff bonus­es, right? ​“Dis­cre­tionary” means … well … dis­cre­tionary – does­n’t it? Not always says the Fed­er­al Court in the recent case of Rus­so v West­pac. In that case, the court ordered Mr Rus­so’s employ­er to pay a dis­cre­tionary bonus…

My child is off the rails, can my will pro­tect them?

In Brief A very rich per­son should leave his kids enough to do any­thing but not enough to do nothing… Whilst very few peo­ple could match War­ren Buf­fet­t’s bank bal­ance, almost every­one would share his sen­ti­ment. We all want to give our chil­dren every advan­tage pos­si­ble, whilst at the same time…

Can I write an arti­cle about my busi­ness competitor?

In Brief In the course of doing busi­ness, you are not allowed to engage in mis­lead­ing or decep­tive con­duct. But what if you utilise your per­son­al exper­tise and expe­ri­ence to make gen­er­al com­ments about your indus­try – for instance, by pub­lish­ing an arti­cle in a trade mag­a­zine, or deliv­er­ing a pub­lic lec­ture…