Pub­li­ca­tions

Dec 21, 2011

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…

Dec 21, 2011

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…

Dec 21, 2011

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…

Dec 21, 2011

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. …

Dec 21, 2011

‘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. …

Dec 21, 2011

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…

Dec 20, 2011

AusLSA report on the envi­ron­men­tal impact of law firms

In March 2011, the Aus­tralian Legal Sec­tor Alliance (AusLSA) released a report on the con­sump­tion of ener­gy, water and paper and the pro­duc­tion of waste by its mem­ber law firms. …

Dec 20, 2011

Com­mence­ment of PPSA to be delayed

In brief – PPSA due to com­mence in Octo­ber 2011 In a recent devel­op­ment, the com­mence­ment date of the Per­son­al Prop­er­ty Secu­ri­ties Act 2009 (Cth) (PPSA) has been delayed from May 2011 to Octo­ber 2011. The defer­ral of the com­mence­ment date is the result of indus­try requests for more time to prepare. Estab­lish­ment…

Dec 20, 2011

“Free range” labelling of food prod­ucts can be misleading

In brief — ACCC pros­e­cutes egg pro­duc­ers for bogus free range claim Many peo­ple choose to pay more for prod­ucts labelled ​“free-range” because they believe that the ani­mals used in their pro­duc­tion were treat­ed in a more humane way. How­ev­er, the ACC­C’s recent suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion of egg pro­duc­ers demon­strates that such labelling…

Dec 20, 2011

Can a par­ent­ing plan be enforced?

In Brief — Enforce­ment of court orders and par­ent­ing plans A court can fine or gaol a par­ent for not abid­ing by court orders. How­ev­er, this is not the case with par­ent­ing plans.  Par­ents’ responsibility With­out court orders or par­ent­ing plans, both par­ents are legal­ly respon­si­ble for their children’s upbring­ing and this respon­si­bil­i­ty con­tin­ues…