Pub­li­ca­tions

Dec 7, 2011

Aus­tralian local coun­cils win appeal against Lehman Broth­ers in High Court

In Brief In this arti­cle Aus­tralian Local Coun­cils win appeal against Lehman Broth­ers in High Court, Part­ner Tean Kerr dis­cuss­es Lehman Broth­ers Hold­ings Inc (USA) fil­ing of a Chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy peti­tion in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca on 14 Sept 2008. Twelve days lat­er, on 26 Sept 2008, admin­is­tra­tors were appoint­ed…

Dec 7, 2011

Pub­lic Inter­est Law Clear­ing House (PILCH)

Our involve­ment with PILCH goes back sev­en years. This organ­i­sa­tion refers indi­vid­u­als and organ­i­sa­tions to mem­ber law firms like Swaab, where lawyers vol­un­teer to pro­vide pro bono legal assis­tance in mat­ters which involve mar­gin­alised peo­ple or which are clear­ly in the pub­lic interest.  The lawyers in our firm have worked on…

Dec 7, 2011

Online behav­iour­al adver­tis­ing code released How do you want your cook­ies crumbled?

In brief: Indus­try coali­tion releas­es vol­un­tary Guide­line — Web users to have abil­i­ty to opt out of OBA In late March 2011, an Aus­tralian adver­tis­ing indus­try coali­tion released its Aus­tralian Best Prac­tice Guide­line for Online Behav­iour­al Adver­tis­ing (OBA, also known as Inter­est Based Advertising). What is Online Behav­iour­al Advertising? Often in…

Dec 7, 2011

ASIC appeal upheld — Fortes­cue Met­als Group and Andrew For­rest mis­led investors

In brief — Full Fed­er­al Court over­turns 2009 ruling On 18 Feb­ru­ary 2011 the Full Fed­er­al Court unan­i­mous­ly over­turned the 2009 Fed­er­al Court rul­ing which cleared Fortes­cue Met­als Group (FMG) and its Chair­man and CEO Mr Andrew For­rest of mis­lead­ing and decep­tive conduct. Frame­work agree­ments with three Chi­nese companies The appeal relat­ed to…

Dec 7, 2011

Film and TV stu­dios appeal to High Court in iiNet copy­right case

In brief — Full Fed­er­al Court deci­sion on iiNet appealed to the High Court The con­sor­tium of film and tele­vi­sion com­pa­nies has gone to the High Court to appeal the deci­sion that iiNet did not autho­rise copy­right infringe­ment via its inter­net service.  Back­ground to iiNet case As men­tioned in our pre­vi­ous arti­cle, Appeal…

Dec 7, 2011

Mobile tele­phone facility/​tower leas­es — 3 things you need to know if you are a landlord

In brief — Landlord/​tenant rela­tion­ship, lease agree­ments and good faith negotiations If a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider (tel­co) wish­es to install a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions facil­i­ty on your land, you need to be aware of the points to be includ­ed in a lease agree­ment and the tel­co’s oblig­a­tion to nego­ti­ate in good faith. It is crit­i­cal that…

Dec 7, 2011

Can you dis­miss an employ­ee for a Face­book post?

In brief – Post­ings on social media can have con­se­quences for employees An employ­ee who thinks that they may say what they want about their employ­er on Face­book with total immu­ni­ty from con­se­quences is fool­ish, accord­ing to Fair Work Aus­tralia (FWA). The rise of social media Social net­work­ing sites such as Face­book…

Dec 7, 2011

Swaab car­bon emis­sions low­est of all AusLSA law firms

In Brief In this arti­cle Legal­ly green, Lawyers Week­ly mag­a­zine has high­light­ed the efforts of the eight found­ing mem­bers of the Aus­tralian Legal Sec­tor Alliance (AusLSA) to mea­sure and reduce their car­bon footprint. …

Dec 7, 2011

Swaab Legal Direc­tions — Issue 1 April 2011

Swaab Legal Direc­tions — The first issue for 2011 of our quar­ter­ly newsletter. …

Dec 7, 2011

Exten­sion of per­son­al lia­bil­i­ty of directors

Impor­tant changes in the law gov­ern­ing a director’s lia­bil­i­ty for com­pa­ny debts have been fore­cast. The antic­i­pat­ed changes will mean that a com­pa­ny director’s per­son­al lia­bil­i­ty for com­pa­ny debts will be extend­ed to include unpaid super­an­nu­a­tion guar­an­tee con­tri­bu­tions for their companies. Direc­tors are cur­rent­ly required to cause their com­pa­ny to pay deduc­tion tax­es…