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Pro­tec­tion of the Olympic Brand — mar­keters beware

In Brief With the Lon­don 2012 Olympic Games fast approach­ing adver­tis­ers and mar­keters must be care­ful how they asso­ciate them­selves with the Olympics and the Olympic brand. The suc­cess of an Olympic Games is not only mea­sured by ath­let­ic achieve­ments on the track or in the gym­na­si­um. The eco­nom­ic suc­cess of…

Can a ten­ant with­draw an exer­cise of an option under a lease?

In Brief A lease may con­tain an option for the ten­ant to enter into a new lease when the first term expires. This is known as an option lease. Gen­er­al­ly if a ten­ant exer­cis­es the option in accor­dance with the terms of the option lease, the ten­ant will be bound by the new lease…

Delay in com­mence­ment of New South Wales ​“rea­son­able steps” legislation

In Brief On 8 Sep­tem­ber 2011, the New South Wales Par­lia­ment passed the Courts and Oth­er Leg­is­la­tion Fur­ther Amend­ment Bill 2011 (Bill). The Bill will bring into effect a lengthy post­pone­ment of up to 18 months of new leg­is­la­tion, requir­ing par­ties to take rea­son­able steps to seek to resolve a dis­pute before court pro­ceed­ings…

Are pre-mar­i­tal assets treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly to mar­i­tal assets dur­ing prop­er­ty settlement?

In brief — How pre-mar­i­tal assets are treated A pre-mar­i­tal asset will be con­sid­ered to be a con­tri­bu­tion of the per­son who bought that asset into the marriage. Divid­ing the assets after separation After sep­a­ra­tion, the par­ties to a rela­tion­ship are enti­tled to seek a divi­sion of assets of the rela­tion­ship. The assets of the rela­tion­ship include…

Employ­ee suc­ceeds in prov­ing Unfair Dis­missal but is left with­out a remedy

In Brief In an extra­or­di­nary deci­sion, Fair Work Aus­tralia (FWA) has found an unfair dis­missal despite the employ­er prov­ing a valid rea­son for dis­missal and com­pli­ance with the pro­ce­dur­al jus­tice require­ments. In a fur­ther twist, the employ­ee was left with­out a remedy. Mark Not­man v Neway Trans­port [2011] FWA 5162 Mark Not­man (Not­man) was employed by…

PPSA ter­mi­nol­o­gy

In Brief The Per­son­al Prop­er­ty Secu­ri­ties Act 2009 (PPSA) was due to come into force on 31 Octo­ber 2011, how­ev­er, the Com­mon­wealth Attor­ney Gen­er­al’s depart­ment has now con­firmed that this date is not achiev­able and it is now tar­get­ing a date before 1 Feb­ru­ary 2012. New terminology When it is imple­ment­ed, the PPSA will…

How do courts enforce restraint of trade clauses?

In Brief Fol­low­ing on from our ear­li­er arti­cle regard­ing Pre­serv­ing your busi­ness through restraint of trade claus­es, the New South Wales Supreme Court has recent­ly hand­ed down a deci­sion which pro­vides valu­able insight into the approach that the judi­cia­ry takes to enforc­ing restraint of trade clauses. Sev­en Net­work (Oper­a­tions) Ltd 7 ors v James War­bur­ton…

What’s the worst that could hap­pen if I don’t have a valid will?

In Brief Estate plan­ning is not some­thing we gen­er­al­ly think about as we go about lead­ing our busy lives. But what many of us fail to see is that neglect­ing to car­ry out this process could have seri­ous ram­i­fi­ca­tions for our fam­i­lies and their futures.  Hav­ing prop­er­ly con­sid­ered and draft­ed estate plan­ning…

6 tips for busi­ness owners

1. Eval­u­ate opportunities Before embark­ing on a new ven­ture, start­ing a new busi­ness or adding a new group to your exist­ing busi­ness you should test your new oppor­tu­ni­ty by using an eval­u­a­tion mod­el. We see too many peo­ple with a busi­ness idea, who neglect to under­take basic research and due dili­gence. Do not make…

“Best endeav­ours” and ​“rea­son­able endeav­ours” is there a difference?

In brief – Aus­tralian inter­pre­ta­tion dif­fer­ent to the UK In the UK, the term ​“best endeav­ours” implies a high­er stan­dard than the term ​“rea­son­able endeav­ours”. How­ev­er, in Aus­tralia the terms appear to have the same prac­ti­cal effect. Eng­lish posi­tion – ​“best endeav­ours” means a high­er thresh­old must be met In Eng­land, it seems that the…

Lucas­film — Repli­ca Star Wars impe­r­i­al stormtroop­er hel­mets not pro­tect­ed by copyright

In Brief The UK Supreme Court recent­ly hand­ed down its deci­sion in an appeal by Lucas­film con­cern­ing the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights in var­i­ous arte­facts made for use in the first Star Wars film and repro­duced by Mr Ainsworth in 2004. This deci­sion is a vital les­son for any­one in Aus­tralia involved in…

Options avail­able for women seek­ing equal pay

“Over the course of her career, an Aus­tralian woman will earn $1 mil­lion less than a man, and will retire with less than half the sav­ings in her super­an­nu­a­tion account.” - Sha­ran Bur­row, ACTU pres­i­dent, Octo­ber 2009 Gen­der wage gap increas­ing for Aus­tralian women Despite the fact that women in Aus­tralia won the right…

Astro­turf­ing, social media and the law

In brief — If astro­turf­ing mis­leads con­sumers, it breach­es Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law “Astro­turf­ing” refers to an orches­trat­ed expres­sion of sup­port for a cause, whether a prod­uct, ser­vice or pol­i­cy, designed to give the impres­sion of a ​“grass­roots” move­ment. If this prac­tice mis­leads con­sumers, it breach­es both the Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law and the Code…

Astro­turf­ing, social media and the law

In brief — If astro­turf­ing mis­leads con­sumers, it breach­es Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law “Astro­turf­ing” refers to an orches­trat­ed expres­sion of sup­port for a cause, whether a prod­uct, ser­vice or pol­i­cy, designed to give the impres­sion of a ​“grass­roots” move­ment. If this prac­tice mis­leads con­sumers, it breach­es both the Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law and the Code…

ASIC involve­ment marks new twist in Chameleon Min­ing case

In brief — Finan­cial ser­vices licence exemp­tions do not have ret­ro­spec­tive effect ASIC has become involved in the case of Inter­na­tion­al Lit­i­ga­tion Part­ners Pty Ltd v Chameleon Min­ing NL, sub­mit­ting to the court that exemp­tions from the need to hold a finan­cial ser­vices licence do not have ret­ro­spec­tive effect. Lit­i­ga­tion fund­ing agree­ment is a finan­cial product…