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Adverse Action claims avail­able despite lengthy absence from work

In Brief The Fed­er­al Cir­cuit Court has dis­pelled any lin­ger­ing doubts as whether or not employ­ers can safe­ly ter­mi­nate employ­ment fol­low­ing a lengthy absence from work, and with­out poten­tial­ly fac­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion claims aris­ing from the termination. The Facts This issue arose in the con­text of ter­mi­na­tion of an absent employ­ee, a Mr McGar­va, who…

Legal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege and inves­ti­ga­tion reports

In Brief A recent deci­sion of the Fed­er­al Cir­cuit Court in an adverse action claim, has served to remind us of the pit­falls of lawyers car­ry­ing out inves­tiga­tive work for clients and then giv­ing them legal advice based on their inves­ti­ga­tion. In this case legal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege was held to have been waived…

Request for Flex­i­ble Work­ing Arrangements 

In Brief When com­pa­nies receive employ­ee requests for flex­i­ble work­ing arrange­ments, under­stand­ing if they can accom­mo­date their employ­ee’s need for flex­i­bil­i­ty, whilst still main­tain­ing their busi­ness and client inter­ests can be a dif­fi­cult bal­anc­ing act. In a busi­ness envi­ron­ment where there are com­pet­ing inter­ests between employ­ers, employ­ees and clients it’s dif­fi­cult to strike the…

Can ter­mi­na­tion upon rea­son­able notice still be implied into an employ­ment contract?

In Brief The tra­di­tion­al­ly accept­ed notion that an employ­ment con­tract with no express notice pro­vi­sion may require an employ­er to pro­vide or pay ​“rea­son­able notice” has increas­ing­ly come under the spotlight. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing (absent sum­ma­ry ter­mi­na­tion for mis­con­duct), when the need to ter­mi­nate employ­ment aris­es, notice of ter­mi­na­tion is required to be…

Demise of implied term of mutu­al trust and con­fi­dence — High Court decision

In Brief The legal fra­ter­ni­ty has been eager­ly await­ing the deci­sion of the High Court in the case of Com­mon­wealth Bank of Aus­tralia v Bark­er [2014] HCA 32 (10 Sep­tem­ber 2014). The issue for con­sid­er­a­tion involves whether in employ­ment con­tracts, the com­mon law of Aus­tralia implies a term of mutu­al trust and…

Defama­tion alleged in rela­tion to teacher per­for­mance report

In Brief A recent action in defama­tion com­menced by a per­son engaged as a casu­al teacher for a peri­od of 1 month at a coun­try high school, has cast the spot­light on the need for employ­ers gen­er­al­ly, to ensure per­for­mance process­es and assess­ments are han­dled with extreme caution. In this instance, the teacher con­cerned has sued…

Can the Spring­board prin­ci­ple be applied to restrain a for­mer employee?

In Brief Employ­ers have strug­gled in the past to find ways of restrain­ing a for­mer employ­ee from set­ting up in com­pe­ti­tion and from solic­it­ing their clients and their good­will in the absence of a ded­i­cat­ed restraint of trade covenant con­tained in the employ­ee’s con­tract of employment. How­ev­er, a recent deci­sion of the Fed­er­al Court of…

A flat­ter­ing per­for­mance appraisal can be your undoing

In Brief We all try and see the best in peo­ple, right? We have been told that if you com­pli­ment and encour­age peo­ple their behav­iour will improve, cor­rect? So, shouldn’t a per­for­mance review empha­sise the pos­i­tive to get the best out of your staff? Yet, in a recent deci­sion of the Fair Work…

Recent M&A trends in the food distribution industry

In Brief From their expe­ri­ence work­ing on a num­ber of recent M&A trans­ac­tions in the food dis­tri­b­u­tion sec­tor, Alis­tair Jaque, Part­ner, Andrew Drap­er, Senior Asso­ciate, and Euge Pow­er, Solic­i­tor, high­light some recent trends which have become com­mon themes in M&A trans­ac­tions in this industry. The Facts 1. Succes­sion plan­ning and staged exits The food dis­tri­b­u­tion indus­try…

Direct­ing an employ­ee to go on gar­den­ing leave

In Brief When an employ­ment rela­tion­ship comes to an end, there are var­i­ous mech­a­nisms avail­able to an employ­er to pro­tect their busi­ness inter­ests from an ex-employ­ee. One such mech­a­nism is to place the employ­ee on gar­den­ing leave. Habers­berg­er J of the Vic­to­ri­an Supreme Court described ​“gar­den­ing leave” as a ​“col­lo­qui­al or euphemistic…

Liq­uida­tors — exam­in­ing pre-exam­i­na­tion steps

In Brief Exam­i­na­tions under sec­tions 596A and 596B of the Cor­po­ra­tions Act 2001 (Cth) are an impor­tant method for liq­uida­tors to assess the prospects of suc­cess and basis for bring­ing court pro­ceed­ings as part of the liq­ui­da­tion. How­ev­er, giv­en the cost and time involved in con­duct­ing an exam­i­na­tion, it is often…

Mr Process Serv­er wants to con­nect with you…

In Brief Recent­ly the Irish High Court ruled that court doc­u­ments could be served via a per­son­’s LinkedIn account. The wide­spread adop­tion and active engage­ment with social media sites, includ­ing LinkedIn, Face­book and Twit­ter, facil­i­tate an unprece­dent­ed lev­el of con­nec­tiv­i­ty in Aus­tralia and abroad. Does this mean that we can now also…

Test­ing the water — does a builder owe a duty of care to an Own­ers Corporation?

In Brief In an impor­tant deci­sion which has ram­i­fi­ca­tions for Own­ers Cor­po­ra­tions, the High Court has recent­ly held that a builder did not owe a duty of care to an Own­ers Cor­po­ra­tion to avoid caus­ing it to suf­fer eco­nom­ic loss from latent defects in com­mon property.  The Facts Brook­field Mul­ti­plex Ltd v Own­ers Cor­po­ra­tion Stra­ta Plan…

They just don’t get on… but what can I do?

In Brief It can be a real­ly dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion for an employ­er when two staff mem­bers sim­ply do not get on. Nei­ther is nec­es­sar­i­ly at fault or, alter­nate­ly, both of them are. But what can an employ­er do? An employ­er is not able to make peo­ple like one anoth­er and their…

Land­lords beware — Incen­tive claw-back pro­vi­sions deemed to be penal­ty clauses

In Brief The recent Supreme Court of Queens­land deci­sion of GWC Prop­er­ty Group Pty Ltd v Hig­gin­son & Ors affirms the long-held but (until now) untest­ed fear that the ubiq­ui­tous claw-back pro­vi­sions which accom­pa­ny most incen­tive pro­vi­sions may very well con­sti­tute a penal­ty clause. What is a penal­ty pro­vi­sion? The mod­ern law of penal­ty pro­vi­sions…