Pub­li­ca­tions

Aug 29, 2024

5 claus­es to look out for in your fran­chise agree­ment – they might be unfair

Changes to the unfair con­tract terms régime are in effect, and enter­ing into any fran­chise agree­ment con­tain­ing an unfair con­tact term or rely­ing on an unfair con­tract term in a fran­chise agree­ment could come with sig­nif­i­cant penal­ties for fran­chisors. Both fran­chisors and fran­chisees should review their fran­chise agree­ments to ensure they do…

Jul 16, 2020

Mer­i­tas — An Intro­duc­tion to Tem­po­rary Changes Affect­ing Busi­ness­es in Aus­tralia and New Zealand

Look­ing for busi­ness and legal guid­ance regard­ing COVID-19 updates and pro­grams in Aus­tralia & New Zealand? This doc­u­ment has cov­er­age across the region with mem­ber firms who are here to assist. Please vis­it any of the COVID-19 resource mate­ri­als for more com­pre­hen­sive updates.  View here…

Aug 12, 2019

Deeds of Release and their effec­tive­ness – update 2019

Intro­duc­tion Releas­es and in par­tic­u­lar, deeds of release, play a sig­nif­i­cant role in resolv­ing dis­putes across a wide range of issues and at dif­fer­ent stages in their evo­lu­tion. It is a rea­son­able expec­ta­tion to have, as the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of a release, that it will pro­vide cer­tain­ty going for­ward and that the per­son pro­vid­ing the…

Mar 6, 2018

ACCC report high­lights penal­ties for fran­chisors for fail­ing to meet dis­clo­sure obligations

The ACCC has recent­ly pub­lished its bi-annu­al ​“Small busi­ness in focus” report (​‘the Report’) for the peri­od July to Decem­ber 2017, which includes insights into the work that the ACCC under­takes to pro­tect franchisees. The Report includes sta­tis­tics about the num­ber of reports it receives about ​“Fran­chis­ing Code relat­ed issues”…

Aug 24, 2017

Fran­chisors beware: ACCC report high­lights actions tak­en against franchisors

The ACCC has recent­ly pub­lished its bian­nu­al ​“Small Busi­ness in Focus” report (​“the Report”) which describes the work it has under­tak­en con­cern­ing small busi­ness, fran­chis­ing and agri­cul­ture over the first six months of this year.[1] Part of the Report high­lights the enforce­ment actions it has tak­en against fran­chisors for alleged…