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Equi­ty Crowd Source Fund­ing — Part 1: A basic primer

On 28 March 2017 the Cor­po­ra­tions Amend­ment (Crowd-sourced Fund­ing) Act 2017 (Cth) (Act) received Roy­al Assent, paving the way for crowd-sourced equi­ty fund­ing. What is Equi­ty Crowd Source Funding? It is a mech­a­nism (an online plat­form) that will enable eli­gi­ble com­pa­nies to raise cap­i­tal by offer­ing secu­ri­ties (only new ordi­nary shares) in…

Mary Digiglio and Tony D’Agosti­no ranked in Doyles Guide 2017

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Mary Digiglio and Tony D’Agosti­no who have been iden­ti­fied by clients and peers for their exper­tise and abil­i­ties in Prop­er­ty and Real Estate Law. Both Mary and Tony have been list­ed as Rec­om­mend­ed in the Prop­er­ty & Real Estate Lawyers cat­e­go­ry and Mary has also been list­ed as Rec­om­mend­ed…

James Skel­ton has been announced as a Lawyers Week­ly 30 Under 30 finalist!

James Skel­ton has been announced as a Lawyers Week­ly 30 Under 30 final­ist. The Lawyers Week­ly 30 Under 30 Awards recog­nise young lawyers striv­ing for pro­fes­sion­al excel­lence with­in their spe­cif­ic prac­tice areas.  The Lawyers Week­ly 30 Under 30 is an excit­ing awards pro­gram that iden­ti­fies the best young lawyers across Aus­tralia. Achiev­ing…

Where there’s no will, there’s still a way 5 things about intestacy

Every­one has an estate plan – even if you did­n’t plan one. If you die with­out a will, the rules of intes­ta­cy will apply. The rules of intes­ta­cy dis­trib­ute the estate in accor­dance with spe­cif­ic rules in the Suc­ces­sion Act 2006 NSW. Leav­ing your estate plan­ning to the rules of intes­ta­cy…

Can an employ­er require an employ­ee to under­take a med­ical exam­i­na­tion? update

Employ­ers are reg­u­lar­ly con­front­ed with sit­u­a­tions in which they need to obtain fur­ther med­ical infor­ma­tion about injured or unwell employ­ees who for var­i­ous rea­sons, fail to coop­er­ate with employ­er requests for such infor­ma­tion and/​or to attend an employ­er nom­i­nat­ed doc­tor for a med­ical examination. There are a num­ber of Court deci­sions which…

Can you stand down your employees?

A com­mon ques­tion for employ­ers is whether and in what cir­cum­stances can they stand down an employee. At com­mon law there is no gen­er­al right to stand down or sus­pend an employ­ee with­out pay absent an express con­trac­tu­al term (see dis­cus­sion of cas­es at [65] to [73] of Coal & Allied Min­ing…

Com­mon sense pre­vails in an unfair dis­missal case

I often write about whacky deci­sions of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion which demon­strate the extra­or­di­nary lengths employ­ers have to go to, to avoid falling foul of the maze of employ­ment law rules and regulations. How­ev­er, the recent deci­sion in Geor­gia Sologinkin v Cos­met­ic Sup­pli­ers Pty Ltd T/A Coy is a vic­to­ry for…

Are you enti­tled to trade under your own name?

You some­times hear peo­ple say that they have a fun­da­men­tal right to trade under their own per­son­al name. There is some truth in this belief but there are impor­tant restric­tions to such an alleged right. There is a qual­i­fied com­mon law defence of ​“use of one’s own name” against an action for pass­ing…

Redun­dan­cy — Defend­ing Claims for Unfair Dismissal

Cir­cum­stances will some­times arise in a busi­ness where an employ­er needs to shed staff. The busi­ness may be sub­ject to a takeover or amal­ga­ma­tion, or its rev­enue may con­tract, for exam­ple where the mar­ket par­a­digm changes or per­haps as a result of los­ing key clients. It is in cir­cum­stances such as these, that an…

Devel­op­ers play crit­i­cal role build­ing world-class Smart Cities across Australia

Any of us who has sat in grid­locked traf­fic on our way to the air­port, faced a long train com­mute between home and work, and reg­u­lar­ly strug­gles to find inno­v­a­tive young tal­ent to employ, is unlike­ly to ques­tion the need for smarter cities. Aus­tralia needs cities – both met­ro­pol­i­tan and region­al –…

Post sep­a­ra­tion finan­cial contributions

The peri­od between sep­a­ra­tion and the final­i­sa­tion of a finan­cial mat­ter can be a mat­ter of days (if both par­ties agree) or years (in the Fam­i­ly Law Courts, it is cur­rent­ly esti­mat­ed that par­ties will have to wait 3 years before a defend­ed final hearing). Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, the val­ues of all assets and lia­bil­i­ties of…

Smart devel­op­ers ride the slip­stream of NSW’s $73 bil­lion infra­struc­ture investment

I work near Wyn­yard, in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. Like every­one else in the city I rarely need remind­ing that the State Gov­ern­ment is invest­ing heav­i­ly in infra­struc­ture — though I do some­times need remind­ing how to get across George Street while it’s being dug up for light rail. There are frus­tra­tions…

Make your mark in China

Pro­tect­ing your trade mark in China Aus­tralian busi­ness­es are increas­ing­ly recog­nis­ing the grow­ing impor­tance of Chi­na both as a mar­ket for their goods and ser­vices and as a source of man­u­fac­tured prod­ucts. The pro­tec­tion of trade marks in Chi­na should be of crit­i­cal impor­tance for such busi­ness­es. Recent pub­lic dis­cus­sion high­lights how well-known…

Swaab launch­es fixed fee IP Dis­cov­ery service

PRo­tect­ing your great­est asset: your busi­ness reputation IP Discovery The rep­u­ta­tion of your busi­ness may be the most valu­able asset it pos­sess­es. That rep­u­ta­tion is the face you present to the mar­ket in your com­mer­cial names, brands and pro­mo­tion­al mate­r­i­al. In intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty terms your busi­ness rep­u­ta­tion can be spec­i­fied as your…

James Skel­ton wins 2017 30 Under 30 award for Commercial

Con­grat­u­la­tions to James Skel­ton who has been announced as a win­ner in the com­mer­cial cat­e­go­ry of the Lawyers Week­ly 30 Under 30 awards for 2017. James is one of 30 young guns recog­nised as the best young tal­ent in the Aus­tralian legal pro­fes­sion. Each can­di­date was judged on their sub­mis­sion of work…