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What you were afraid to ask about Long Ser­vice Leave

In Brief Long ser­vice leave is an often over­looked and for­got­ten enti­tle­ment which rewards longer peri­ods of ser­vice. This arti­cle pro­vides an out­line of this area and the key things to be mind­ful of. What is it? Long ser­vice leave is gen­er­al­ly a statu­to­ry enti­tle­ment which employ­ees accrue, based on length of ser­vice with…

Rela­tion­ships Reg­is­ter in New South Wales — What you need to know

In Brief From 1 July 2010, cou­ples in New South Wales are able to reg­is­ter their rela­tion­ship with NSW Reg­istry of Births, Deaths & Marriages. Who can reg­is­ter their relationship? All cou­ples in a com­mit­ted exclu­sive rela­tion­ship can reg­is­ter, regard­less of their gender. Nei­ther par­ty can be mar­ried or be in anoth­er rela­tion­ship that is…

Fam­i­ly trusts after Bamford

On 30 March this year, the High Court dis­missed the appeal by the Com­mis­sion­er of Tax­a­tion against the deci­sion of the Full Fed­er­al Court in the Bam­ford case. This is a land­mark deci­sion for trust law in Australia. This was the first time that the High Court had been approached to con­sid­er…

Guardian­ship Tri­bunal Appli­ca­tions — What you need to know

The Tribunal Pur­suant to the Guardian­ship Act NSW 1987, the Guardian­ship Tri­bunal has the author­i­ty to appoint both Finan­cial Man­agers and Guardians for peo­ple with deci­sion-mak­ing disabilities. Pri­or to mak­ing any order in rela­tion to Finan­cial Man­age­ment or Guardian­ship, the Tri­bunal will con­duct a hear­ing. The hear­ing is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the…

Employ­ees hav­ing Children

In Brief When employ­ees have chil­dren (either via them or a part­ner giv­ing birth or through adop­tion) there are a num­ber of con­se­quences for the employ­ment space. Under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) employ­ees can access unpaid parental leave and a num­ber of oth­er enti­tle­ments. There are also cer­tain oblig­a­tions for employers. Unpaid Parental…

Quick tip for pro­tect­ing your brand — domain names

With con­sumers rely­ing more and more on the abil­i­ty to research and buy prod­ucts and ser­vices online, retail­ers are under con­sid­er­able pres­sure to recon­fig­ure their busi­ness plans in response. Online shop­ping is now main­stream and busi­ness­es must max­imise their online pres­ence in order to com­pete effec­tive­ly. Domain names are a crit­i­cal part…

The three most impor­tant things you should do when first separating

In brief — What to do when you’ve just separated The three most impor­tant things to do are see a fam­i­ly lawyer, look after your­self and keep com­mu­ni­ca­tion with your spouse friendly. See a lawyer Make an appoint­ment to see a fam­i­ly lawyer. The best way to get the answers that you need is to…

Google’s new AdWords pol­i­cy means trade mark own­ers must be more proactive

In brief From 23 April 2013, Google will no longer pre­vent users of its AdWords pro­gramme from using anoth­er par­ty’s reg­is­tered trade marks as key­words in Chi­na, Hong Kong, Macau, Tai­wan, Aus­tralia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Brazil. Whilst this brings Google’s AdWords pol­i­cy into line with oth­er juris­dic­tions world­wide…

What pre­vents peo­ple from being able to reach an out of court settlement?

In Brief — Why are peo­ple unable to reach an out of court settlement? The two main rea­sons why sep­a­rat­ing cou­ples are unable to reach an out of court set­tle­ment are unre­al­is­tic expec­ta­tions and deci­sion mak­ing being cloud­ed by emotions. Unre­al­is­tic expectations When one par­ty has unre­al­is­tic expec­ta­tions about their enti­tle­ments, respon­si­bil­i­ties…

What hap­pens regard­ing child vis­i­ta­tion rights when blend­ed fam­i­lies divorce?

The blend­ed fam­i­ly (step-fam­i­ly) In a blend­ed fam­i­ly, com­mon­ly known as a step-fam­i­ly, one or both part­ners have chil­dren from pre­vi­ous rela­tion­ships. So what hap­pens if the blend­ed fam­i­ly then breaks down? Does the step­par­ent have vis­i­ta­tion rights with their stepchild? Step-par­ents have rights Under the Fam­i­ly Law Act (Cth), chil­dren have a right to…

Rela­tion­ship break­down check­list — what should you do if you separate?

Finan­cial steps to consider Check all joint accounts and home loan redraws. Change PINs and pass­words. With­draw sur­plus funds or restrict access. Speak to your bank. Check all joint cred­it accounts, includ­ing cred­it cards, store cards and over­drafts. Restrict access or can­cel cards and get new ones. If you do not have a bank…

Dis­abled Employees

In Brief Peo­ple often judge a book by its cov­er and this still applies when it comes to the judg­ments we make about each oth­er. In light of the pro­posed anti dis­crim­i­na­tion leg­is­la­tion, this arti­cle out­lines what dis­abil­i­ty dis­crim­i­na­tion is, the excep­tions which allow dis­crim­i­na­tion and how the sup­port­ed wage sys­tem assists…

Hir­ing Dis­abled Employees

In Brief Peo­ple often judge a book by its cov­er and this still applies when it comes to the judg­ments we make about each oth­er. In light of the pro­posed anti dis­crim­i­na­tion leg­is­la­tion, this arti­cle out­lines how the sup­port­ed wage sys­tem assists with the employ­ment of dis­abled persons. What is the sup­port­ed wage system…

How can an SME avoid busi­ness fail­ure? Some use­ful tips to guide you.

In Brief Two recent sur­veys of SME busi­ness own­ers and their advis­ers revealed some key rea­sons why busi­ness­es fail. Rea­sons for failure Accord­ing to a CCH sur­vey, SME own­ers believe that most busi­ness fail­ures are a result of poor cost man­age­ment, whilst many of their advis­ers believe that fail­ure is often due to a poor­ly-designed busi­ness…

Pre-pack­aged insolvencies

What is a pre-pack? At Swaab, we have seen an increase in ​“pre-pack­aged insol­ven­cies” by dis­tressed com­pa­nies. ​“Pre-packs”, as they are known, are arrange­ments where the sale of all or part of a com­pa­ny’s busi­ness and/​or assets is nego­ti­at­ed with a pur­chas­er (often one asso­ci­at­ed with the com­pa­ny or its man­age­ment) pri­or to…