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Plan­ning & Envi­ron­ment Updates

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Dis­miss­ing employ­ees on grounds of inca­pac­i­ty where the employ­er is alleged to have caused the incapacity

One of the most chal­leng­ing issues employ­ers face is deal­ing with employ­ees who are not well enough to per­form their duties.  There some­times comes a point where – when faced with an employ­ee who has been on an extend­ed peri­od of sick leave — the employ­er con­sid­ers the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ter­mi­nat­ing the employment…

Con­nec­tiv­i­ty tur­bo charges growth opportunities

Aus­tralia has notched up 103 suc­ces­sive quar­ters of eco­nom­ic growth. It’s 26 years since we had a reces­sion, mak­ing us a glob­al leader in terms of growth. Growth is impor­tant for any busi­ness, and it’s the lifeblood of the prop­er­ty sector. There have always been two key pil­lars of prop­er­ty growth; the pop­u­la­tion itself and…

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…

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 –…

Swaab Attor­neys earns recer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Mer­i­tas, a glob­al alliance of inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firms

Mer­i­tas is the only law firm alliance with an estab­lished and com­pre­hen­sive means of mon­i­tor­ing the qual­i­ty of its mem­ber firms — a process that saves clients time val­i­dat­ing law firm cre­den­tials and expe­ri­ence. Mer­i­tas mem­ber­ship is selec­tive and by invi­ta­tion only. Firms are reg­u­lar­ly assessed and recer­ti­fied for the…

Do you have to pay an employ­ee where their own con­duct has pre­vent­ed them from per­form­ing their job?

An employ­er might be for­giv­en for think­ing that where an employ­ee’s con­duct has ren­dered them unable to per­form their role, then there is no oblig­a­tion to pay them wages for the rel­e­vant peri­od of down­time. How­ev­er, this ques­tion is one which is now the sub­ject of a Full Bench deci­sion of…

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The ​“Wein­stein Clause”: What is it? Could it be com­ing to Australia?

What is the ​“Wein­stein Clause”? The dis­turb­ing rev­e­la­tions about Har­vey Wein­stein and oth­er enter­tain­ment lumi­nar­ies have put sex­u­al harass­ment firm­ly on the agen­da, embold­en­ing vic­tims to come for­ward to share expe­ri­ences and pur­sue claims, lead­ing to the rise of the #MeToo and #Time­sUp move­ments inter­na­tion­al­ly, and #NowAus­tralia locally.  The lat­est con­se­quence of…

Alco­hol and Fam­i­ly Law

Last year, I wrote an arti­cle on cannabis use and its poten­tial impact on par­ent­ing mat­ters. I have recent­ly con­sid­ered some recent cas­es where alco­hol was raised as an issue in par­ent­ing pro­ceed­ings and com­ment as fol­lows (please note that the whole case should be read for a prop­er con­sid­er­a­tion of the oth­er…

Resign­ing from your employ­ment — can you with­draw your res­ig­na­tion? — Lat­est developments

In recent times there has been a string of deci­sions from the Fair Work Com­mis­sion direct­ed to whether and in what cir­cum­stances, an employ­ee can assert that a res­ig­na­tion giv­en in the heat of the moment which is with­drawn, may not be relied upon by their employer.  To those fol­low­ing the titan­ic strug­gle…

Dis­miss­ing Senior Employ­ees – The Pit­falls to Avoid – Part 1

Whilst the ter­mi­na­tion of any lev­el of employ­ee con­tains a degree of legal risk, the posi­tion in respect of senior employ­ees can be espe­cial­ly perilous. First­ly, the costs of get­ting it wrong are gen­er­al­ly greater (because an award of dam­ages is like­ly to be cal­cu­lat­ed – at least in part – by…

Dis­miss­ing Senior Employ­ees – The Pit­falls to Avoid – Part 2

In the sec­ond and final part of this arti­cle we exam­ine the legal claims senior exec­u­tives can bring on ter­mi­na­tion of employ­ment – and how employ­ers can safe­guard against them. Read ​‘Dis­miss­ing Senior Employ­ees — The Pit­falls to Avoid — Part 1’ here. Unfair dis­missal For an employ­ee who is…

Casu­al Employ­ment: The new rules of engagement

A recent deci­sion of the Full Court of the Fed­er­al Court of Aus­tralia, Work­Pac Pty Ltd v Skene [2018] FCAFC 131 (Skene), held that an employ­ee who had been cat­e­gorised as a ​“casu­al” by the employ­er, Work­Pac, was not in fact a casu­al but rather a per­ma­nent employ­ee and, as a result, enti­tled…

Cyber

Our aim is to help guide you through the var­i­ous legal aspects of this ever chang­ing land­scape of cyber law, these aspects include:Cyber Intel­lec­tu­al Property.Cyber Secu­ri­tyCyber Tech­nol­o­gyCyber Com­merceCyber Pri­va­cySoft­ware devel­op­ment agreementsSoft­ware licens­ing, host­ing and sup­port agreementsSup­port and main­te­nance agreementsWeb­site devel­op­ment agreementsWeb­site user access termsAssign­ments of copy­right in softwareIT pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices agreementsCyber intel­lec­tu­al propertyIntel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (‘IP’) is the legal asset in…