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Open for Reg­is­tra­tion of Inter­est… PPSA — The Ups and Downs of Transition

Pre- and post-PPSA inter­ests. Out with the old? Not quite. It’s now just over four months since the com­mence­ment of the Per­son­al Prop­er­ty Secu­ri­ties Act (PPSA) and we are start­ing to see some inter­est­ing out­comes that high­light the impor­tance of con­sid­er­ing whether you should be reg­is­ter­ing cer­tain secu­ri­ty inter­ests, and the…

Enforc­ing Trade Restraints — Two year restraint can be reasonable

Introduction Employ­ers com­mon­ly include restraint of trade claus­es in con­tracts of employ­ment to seek to pro­tect them­selves from their employ­ees poach­ing their clients or staff, or for work­ing for a competitor. At com­mon law, restraints are con­trary to pub­lic pol­i­cy and are there­fore pri­ma facie void, unless they can be shown…

New Nation­al Busi­ness Names Reg­is­ter — Do I need to do anything?

A New System A new nation­al busi­ness names reg­is­tra­tion ser­vice com­menced on 28 May 2012. The new ser­vice replaces the pre­vi­ous State and Ter­ri­to­ry sys­tems and is admin­is­tered and man­aged by the Aus­tralian Secu­ri­ties Invest­ments Com­mis­sion. The nation­al sys­tem is designed to reduce red tape, save time and cut costs for Aus­tralian…

Some caveats may com­pro­mise a mort­gagee pow­er of sale

In Brief Some caveats reg­is­tered on the title to real prop­er­ty can cre­ate obsta­cles to the con­veyanc­ing process in a mort­gagee pow­er of sale, even if the caveat is reg­is­tered sub­se­quent to the mort­gage under which the mort­gagee is exer­cis­ing its pow­er of sale. Gen­er­al­ly, a caveat freezes the Reg­is­ter, pre­serv­ing the sta­tus quo. …

Changes to insol­ven­cy notices pub­li­ca­tion requirements

In Brief The Aus­tralian Secu­ri­ties and Invest­ments Com­mis­sion (ASIC) has announced that changes to the way most cor­po­rate insol­ven­cy notices need to be pub­lished, will come into effect on 1 July 2012. The changes will mean that under the Cor­po­ra­tions Act 2001 (Cth) most insol­ven­cy notices will need to be pub­lished on…

Redun­dan­cy

Introduction Many employ­ers strug­gle with issues around redun­dan­cy. For exam­ple, when and if they can make a per­son redun­dant and if so, how much is it going to cost them? A con­text in which the issue of redun­dan­cy fre­quent­ly crops up is, when a busi­ness is sold and a new own­er offers jobs to the…

Trans­port & Logis­tics — 2012 Mid-Year Round-Up and Outlook

In Brief Our Trans­port & Logis­tics Team’s round-up high­lights devel­op­ments in trans­port reg­u­la­tion that affect every­one, includ­ing the pro­posed imple­men­ta­tion of uni­form ​‘chain of respon­si­bil­i­ty’ laws nation­al­ly and the con­tro­ver­sial new ​‘safe rates’ legislation. We are half way through 2012 and it remains a busy agen­da for trans­port and logis­tics reg­u­la­tors and enforcers…

Think twice before dis­miss­ing employ­ees on Work­ers’ Compensation 

In Brief Employ­ers seek­ing to ter­mi­nate an employ­ee on Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion with­in the pro­ba­tion­ary peri­od should take note of a recent deci­sion of Fair Work Aus­tralia which clar­i­fies how an employ­ee’s peri­od of con­tin­u­ous ser­vice is cal­cu­lat­ed, and high­lights the legal obsta­cles involved in ter­mi­nat­ing their employment.  How frus­trat­ing is it when an…

Pub­lish­ing wind­ing up notices — avoid­ing dupli­ca­tion of costs

In Brief Changes to the way most cor­po­rate insol­ven­cy notices have to be pub­lished came into effect on 1 July 2012. The Supreme Court of New South Wales has pro­vid­ed some guid­ance about how par­ties can avoid the cost of hav­ing to pub­lish notice of any appli­ca­tion to wind up a com­pa­ny on…

Pro­tect your­self with a Con­fi­den­tial­i­ty Agreement

In Brief One of the first con­sid­er­a­tions with any type of new ven­ture is how to pro­tect your busi­ness, valu­able idea or con­cept if you need to dis­close it to others. When is a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ment needed? If you need to dis­close your valu­able busi­ness infor­ma­tion or ideas to a poten­tial part­ner, advis­er or investor…

High Court rules on Octaviar 

In brief — Octaviar deci­sion con­firms return to stability The 1 Sep­tem­ber 2010 High Court deci­sion in Pub­lic Trustee of Queens­land v Fortress Cred­it Cor­po­ra­tion (Aus) 11 Pty Ltd [2010] HCA 29 con­firms a return to sta­bil­i­ty in the long accept­ed prac­tices sur­round­ing reg­is­tra­tion and noti­fi­ca­tion of changes to charges over com­pa­ny property. Last year…

Are health records pro­tect­ed by copyright?

In brief — Health records and copyright On 4 May 2010 the Fed­er­al Court of Aus­tralia held that copy­right did not sub­sist in a num­ber of health records cre­at­ed and main­tained by a health care provider. There­fore, they were not an asset of the business. The health records were health sum­ma­ry sheets, con­sul­ta­tion notes, refer­ral…

ACCC takes ear­ly action on car­bon price claims — make sure you don’t make your­self a target

The car­bon price com­menced in Aus­tralia on 1 July 2012. As part of the new régime, the gov­ern­ment has direct­ed the ACCC to under­take a com­pli­ance and enforce­ment role in rela­tion to claims made about the impact of the car­bon price. The ACCC’s focus is to ensure busi­ness­es do not make mis­lead­ing…

Com­pet­ing inter­ests con­tin­ue to fight over the future of the Min­er­als Resource Rent Tax (MRRT)

Last week’s arti­cle The Min­er­als Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) — Will it be debat­ed at next year’s tax sum­mit? high­light­ed the con­fu­sion around the antic­i­pat­ed imple­men­ta­tion of the fed­er­al government’s pro­posed Min­er­als Resource Rent Tax. The pro­posed tax con­tin­ues to draw vocal crit­i­cism from a num­ber of quar­ters. Small­er min­ing com­pa­nies have…

The right to request flex­i­ble work­ing arrange­ments fol­low­ing a peri­od of parental leave

Employ­ers should be aware that employ­ees have the right to request a change in work­ing arrange­ments to assist the employ­ee in car­ing for a child. Such a request is often made while an employ­ee is on parental leave and is often a request to return to work in a part time capac­i­ty. The employ­er…