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Divid­ing the larg­er and small­er assets of the mar­riage or rela­tion­ship after divorce or break-up

In Brief — Divid­ing the assets of a relationship It is impor­tant to obtain a val­u­a­tion for large assets and to bear in mind any future lia­bil­i­ty which may attach to them. For the divi­sion of small­er assets, it is gen­er­al­ly bet­ter to agree on a divi­sion with your ex-part­ner when­ev­er pos­si­ble, avoid­ing…

The right to inspect a Will with­out a court order and pri­or to pro­bate being granted

In brief — Access to Wills under the Suc­ces­sion Act Since the Suc­ces­sion Act was intro­duced in NSW, pro­vi­sions have been in place enti­tling cer­tain peo­ple to inspect Wills. This is the case pri­or to pro­bate being grant­ed and with­out a court order. Any­one hold­ing a Will on behalf of a deceased per­son must…

In-house coun­sel and legal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege — Are your inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions protected?

In a recent sur­vey of in-house coun­sel, well over half of respon­dents iden­ti­fied legal priv­i­lege as the biggest prob­lem area they faced in their role. What is legal pro­fes­sion­al privilege? Legal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege, also known as client legal priv­i­lege, is defined as a legal right that pro­tects from dis­clo­sure con­fi­den­tial com­mu­ni­ca­tion between a lawyer and…

EU court clar­i­fies trade mark infringe­ment in use of Google AdWords

A recent Euro­pean court deci­sion has caused Euro­pean com­pa­nies to think care­ful­ly about the type of key­words they use in their Google AdWords campaign. Por­tak­abin Ltd v Pri­mak­abin BV In Por­tak­abin Ltd v Pri­mak­abin BV, the court found that the use of a reg­is­tered trade mark as a key­word search term infringed the trade mark owner’s…

Paid parental leave leg­is­la­tion, unpaid leave and flex­i­ble work arrange­ments under the Fair Work Act

In brief — paid parental leave A paid parental leave scheme was intro­duced into par­lia­ment on 12 May 2010. It passed the Sen­ate on 17 June 2010. The scheme com­mences on 1 Jan­u­ary 2011. Con­tin­u­ing enti­tle­ment to unpaid leave and flex­i­ble work arrangements The Fair Work Act enshrines the right of employ­ees who give…

Defama­tion — Q & A

What is defama­tion all about? Defama­tion law is all about pro­tect­ing rep­u­ta­tion. Where a per­son has pub­lished some­thing whether oral­ly or in per­ma­nent form about some­body else to a third per­son or per­sons which is defam­a­to­ry, then the per­son defamed may have an action in defamation. Some­thing is defam­a­to­ry if it caus­es the audi­ence…

Com­put­er secu­ri­ty and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty — pre­cau­tions to take on sep­a­ra­tion or divorce

In brief Any­one who is sep­a­rat­ing or has sep­a­rat­ed from their part­ner needs to take imme­di­ate steps to ensure the secu­ri­ty of their com­put­er and oth­er dig­i­tal devices. Increas­ing use of computers With the increas­ing use of com­put­ers in many areas of life such as finan­cial man­age­ment and social inter­ac­tion, there has been…

Cor­po­rate gov­er­nance for small-to-medi­um enter­pris­es (SMEs)

In brief – Cor­po­rate gov­er­nance for SMEs Many SMEs con­sid­er that cor­po­rate gov­er­nance is only rel­e­vant to large com­pa­nies. How­ev­er, good gov­er­nance presents major advan­tages for all com­pa­nies, espe­cial­ly when rais­ing cap­i­tal or sell­ing the business. All com­pa­nies ben­e­fit from good cor­po­rate governance The major­i­ty of com­pa­nies in Aus­tralia are small-to-medi­um enter­pris­es which…

Mar­riage, divorce and sep­a­ra­tion — when should you change your will?

In Brief Mar­riage, divorce and sep­a­ra­tion are all events which require you to change your Will. Marriage If you mar­ry it is imper­a­tive that you make a new Will. If you mar­ry after you have made a Will, the Will is auto­mat­i­cal­ly revoked (or can­celled). The only excep­tion to this rule is if the…

ATO issues state­ment on Bam­ford Case

In Brief Last month we dis­cussed the High Court deci­sion in the Bam­ford case. We high­light­ed that the ATO was expect­ed to issue a Deci­sion Impact State­ment in the near future. The ATO has now done so with its state­ment dat­ed 2 June 2010. Sum­ma­ry of the Bam­ford case To recap, this was the…

Fam­i­ly con­sti­tu­tions — how to pre­vent prob­lems before they happen

In Brief Suc­cess­ful devel­op­ment of a fam­i­ly con­sti­tu­tion can help to ensure the pros­per­i­ty and longevi­ty of a fam­i­ly busi­ness. A fam­i­ly con­sti­tu­tion encap­su­lates the val­ues, beliefs and objec­tives of the fam­i­ly and defines the rela­tion­ship of the fam­i­ly to the business. What is a fam­i­ly constitution? Run­ning a fam­i­ly busi­ness is hard enough with­out the addi­tion­al…

Adverse action — the new unfair dismissal

In Brief Employ­ees who do not fit with­in the scheme of unfair dis­missal, either because they are in their qual­i­fy­ing peri­od or because they earn over the high income lim­it of $108,300, are per­mit­ted by the Fair Work Act to bring an even more seri­ous claim relat­ed to adverse action. What…

Wel­come to the .CO era — The .CO domain name extension

In Brief Busi­ness­es through­out the world are able to pro­tect and expand their brand by reg­is­ter­ing a new domain name, in the .CO domain. This is dif­fer­ent to the exist­ing .com and .com​.au domains. Colom­bia opens up .co domain .CO is cur­rent­ly the coun­try code domain for Colom­bia. How­ev­er, recent sur­veys show most…

Part pay­ment of debts — should you deposit that cheque? 

In Brief Can a debtor make a part pay­ment of a debt and stip­u­late that by bank­ing the cheque, the cred­i­tor accepts that the debt has been paid in full? Cheques for par­tial pay­ment of debts Some­times, our clients who pro­vide goods and ser­vices receive cheques for less than the amount owed. On occa­sions, thank­ful­ly rare, the…

Out­go­ings — review of let­table area 

In brief Broad­ly speak­ing, the def­i­n­i­tion of the let­table area in a lease must be appro­pri­ate­ly draft­ed and scru­ti­nised to ensure that it encap­su­lates the inten­tion of the land­lord and the tenant. This is para­mount in regard to a land­lord’s abil­i­ty to appor­tion costs to and recov­er costs from ten­ants and weighs heav­i­ly on…