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Ter­mi­na­tion of employ­ees for breach of drug & alco­hol policies

In brief – FWA takes breach­es seriously The pro­mo­tion of safe­ty in the work­place is an issue tak­en seri­ous­ly by Fair Work Aus­tralia (FWA) which has con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ed employ­ers in ter­mi­nat­ing employ­ees who breach their drug and alco­hol policies. Ter­mi­na­tion of employ­ees for breach­es of drug and alco­hol policies In unfair dis­missal appli­ca­tions…

Pre­serv­ing your busi­ness through restraint of trade clauses

In brief – Employ­ee con­tracts need con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and restraint of trade clauses The val­ue of a busi­ness is typ­i­cal­ly mea­sured by its good­will, assets and abil­i­ty to retain staff. In order to pre­serve and pro­tect this val­ue, it is impor­tant that employ­ers include suit­able con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and restraint of trade claus­es in their…

New rules on black­out peri­ods and trad­ing win­dows for trad­ing in list­ed com­pa­ny shares

In brief — List­ed com­pa­nies now need a trad­ing policy From 1 Jan­u­ary 2011 list­ed com­pa­nies are required under ASX List­ing Rule 12.9 to adopt a trad­ing pol­i­cy. Trad­ing poli­cies are designed to reduce the poten­tial for con­flicts of inter­est and insid­er trading. Black­out periods  Dur­ing a black­out peri­od, direc­tors and senior staff are pre­vent­ed from trad­ing…

Pub­lic access to com­pa­ny reg­is­ters — the prop­er pur­pose test

Today any­one can access the reg­is­ter of mem­bers of any com­pa­ny (con­tain­ing the names and address­es of all share­hold­ers) with only a writ­ten request and pay­ment of an admin­is­tra­tive fee. Click here to read full arti­cle. …

‘Get up’ or over­all impres­sion of a prod­uct — Beware claims of infringement

Swaab Attor­neys dis­cuss­es the sig­nif­i­cance of the over­all look of a prod­uct rel­a­tive to its com­peti­tors in Canada’s Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance Quar­ter­ly. Click here to read full arti­cle. …

Fam­i­ly Law Update

This was a case of a long mar­riage, the par­ties hav­ing met in 1978 and mar­ried in 1986. They sep­a­rat­ed in 2003, after a mar­riage of 17 years, and divorced 2 years lat­er. There were 4 chil­dren of the mar­riage, aged 19, 17, 16 and 13 at the time of tri­al. The younger 3 were still at…

Changes to claims on deceased estates

Cer­tain peo­ple such as a hus­band, wife, part­ner, chil­dren, grand­chil­dren and oth­ers are enti­tled to make a claim on an Estate of a deceased per­son if that per­son left the claimant with inad­e­quate pro­vi­sion in their Will or on intes­ta­cy (with­out a Will). By the Suc­ces­sion Amend­ment (Fam­i­ly Pro­vi­sion) Act 2008, the leg­is­la­tion in…

Swaab in BRW Mag­a­zine 9 Decem­ber 2010

Busi­ness Review Week­ly reports on the Best Places to Work in Aus­tralia for 2010. Swaab Attor­neys was the high­est rank­ing law firm on the list of 50 companies. …

Swaab employ­ment part­ner War­wick Ryan in Char­tered Secretaries 

In this Char­tered Sec­re­taries arti­cle, Swaab employ­ment part­ner War­wick Ryan exam­ines adverse action claims under the Fair Work Act, urg­ing employ­ers to be wary of pit­falls in the legislation. …

Swaab Legal Direc­tions — Issue 3 Decem­ber 2010

Swaab Legal Direc­tions — The third issue for 2010 of our quar­ter­ly newsletter. …

Build­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy update — Com­mer­cial Build­ings Manda­to­ry Dis­clo­sure Régime and Environment

In Brief — Mixed use build­ings, refur­bish­ments and Envi­ron­men­tal Upgrade Agreements The Com­mer­cial Build­ings Manda­to­ry Dis­clo­sure Régime has under­gone amend­ments, effec­tive 29 Novem­ber 2010, relat­ed to mixed use build­ings and refur­bish­ments. The Local Gov­ern­ment Amend­ment (Envi­ron­men­tal Upgrade Agree­ments) Bill 2010 facil­i­tates a financ­ing mech­a­nism for build­ing own­ers to imple­ment major long term…

Cloud com­put­ing and smart phones — Has your busi­ness updat­ed its IP policy?

In Brief — Smart devices and IT policy The increas­ing pro­lif­er­a­tion of smart devices pos­es a new secu­ri­ty risk for busi­ness­es. To deal with this risk, you may need to update your com­pa­ny’s IT pol­i­cy and ensure that it is implemented. Use of smart devices in business Most busi­ness­es are offer­ing either Black­ber­rys…

Fam­i­ly busi­ness­es and employ­ment law — How prob­lems arise and how to pre­vent them

In Brief — Employ­ment prob­lems relat­ed to the size of a fam­i­ly business Fam­i­ly busi­ness­es typ­i­cal­ly encounter employ­ment prob­lems once they reach a cer­tain size. These prob­lems can arise because of short­falls in HR train­ing, work­force man­age­ment, com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels, employ­ment pro­ce­dures, cri­te­ria for pro­mo­tion or pro­ce­dures for inves­ti­gat­ing inap­pro­pri­ate behav­iour, under­per­for­mance and complaints. How…

Sex­u­al harass­ment in sup­port­ed employ­ment — Risks for employ­ers and how to min­imise them

In Brief Christ­mas is the sea­son for many things, includ­ing inap­pro­pri­ate behav­iour in the work­place. Employ­ers need to be aware that sex­u­al harass­ment claims can result from actions which spring from the best inten­tions. What one per­son con­sid­ers to be friend­ly behav­iour can be seen by oth­ers as offen­sive and inappropriate…

Nego­ti­at­ing par­ent­ing arrange­ments after sep­a­ra­tion or divorce

In brief — Emo­tions can cloud judgement The biggest mis­take that peo­ple make when nego­ti­at­ing par­ent­ing arrange­ments is that they allow their own anger and hurt to cloud their judg­ment as to what par­ent­ing arrange­ments would be in the best inter­ests of their children. Best inter­ests of the child The Fam­i­ly Law Act…