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How to lose a busi­ness — with­out lift­ing a finger

‘The share­hold­ers own the busi­ness, right? After all, they own the com­pa­ny, which pays the rent and the staff and the bills that keep the lights on and the pho­to­copi­er hum­ming. The cus­tomers are cus­tomers of the busi­ness, aren’t they? Sure, your employ­ees have the direct rela­tion­ship with the cus­tomers…

Per­son­al risks for direc­tors in mod­ern times

When I came back to the office after the hol­i­days, I came across a cou­ple of recent sur­veys of Aus­tralian direc­tors which reveal some of the issues that most con­cern the peo­ple who run com­pa­nies in this coun­try in 2017. Reg­u­la­to­ry and per­son­al risks are always near the top of these lists, and…

For­mer direc­tors need to watch their step

Intro­duc­tion It is not unusu­al for for­mer direc­tors of com­pa­nies to set up in com­pe­ti­tion against their orig­i­nal com­pa­nies. When they do so, they need to watch their step. For­mer direc­tors may find them­selves in a poten­tial mine­field with legal mines at every turn. A salu­tary les­son for for­mer direc­tors involved the…

Think­ing of start­ing a fam­i­ly? Writ­ten con­sent may be the way of the future.

Some peo­ple plan a fam­i­ly in advance. Oth­ers may have it at the back of their minds for some time. IVF has become a far more acces­si­ble ser­vice in the last decade and what hap­pens to frozen embryos if a cou­ple sep­a­rates is entire­ly depen­dent on the nom­i­na­tion they make at the time they…

5 Rea­sons why you might need tes­ta­men­tary trusts in your will

A tes­ta­men­tary trust is a trust that is cre­at­ed under a will and comes into effect after you die. Here are five rea­sons why tes­ta­men­tary trusts are a great struc­ture to con­sid­er in your estate planning. Asset pro­tec­tion Assets under a tes­ta­men­tary trust are held and man­aged by a trustee (as appoint­ed by you) for the…

Rea­son­able notice on ter­mi­na­tion of employ­ment has it a future?

Intro­duc­tion Ter­mi­na­tion of a con­tract of employ­ment upon rea­son­able notice has long been regard­ed as part of the employ­ment law land­scape. It bridges the gap where the par­ties to the employ­ment rela­tion­ship have failed to spec­i­fy in the con­tract of employ­ment, the peri­od of notice nec­es­sary to end the rela­tion­ship with­out…

Amend­ed Land and Envi­ron­ment Court Practices

IN SUM­MA­RY The Chief Judge of the Land and Envi­ron­ment Court has issued new prac­tice direc­tions for poli­cies aimed at stream­lin­ing mer­it appeals. Mul­ti­ple adjourn­ments of con­cil­i­a­tion con­fer­ences with par­ties slow­ly mean­der­ing in an effort to reach agree­ment will no longer be per­mit­ted. If appli­cants wish to rely on amend­ed plans…

“What becomes of the bro­ken heart­ed?” and can or should employ­ers care anyway?

The unfor­tu­nate answer to the Motown bal­lad ques­tion — ​‘What becomes of the bro­ken heart­ed?’ — is they some­times become stalk­ers. So, when a work­place romance or flir­ta­tion goes wrong, does the employ­er have a right to tidy up the mess? A quick review of past deci­sions shows that the Fair Work…

5 ways your step-child could claim on your estate

Step-chil­dren may be able to make a claim against your estate if they are able to prove first­ly, their eli­gi­bil­i­ty, and sec­ond­ly, that you have not giv­en ade­quate pro­vi­sion for their prop­er main­te­nance, edu­ca­tion or advance­ment. 5 dif­fer­ent cas­es are dis­cussed below. I have an estranged rela­tion­ship with my step-child and I haven’t seen…

Equi­ty Crowd Source Fund­ing — Part 1: A basic primer

On 28 March 2017 the Cor­po­ra­tions Amend­ment (Crowd-sourced Fund­ing) Act 2017 (Cth) (Act) received Roy­al Assent, paving the way for crowd-sourced equi­ty fund­ing. What is Equi­ty Crowd Source Funding? It is a mech­a­nism (an online plat­form) that will enable eli­gi­ble com­pa­nies to raise cap­i­tal by offer­ing secu­ri­ties (only new ordi­nary shares) in…

Where there’s no will, there’s still a way 5 things about intestacy

Every­one has an estate plan – even if you did­n’t plan one. If you die with­out a will, the rules of intes­ta­cy will apply. The rules of intes­ta­cy dis­trib­ute the estate in accor­dance with spe­cif­ic rules in the Suc­ces­sion Act 2006 NSW. Leav­ing your estate plan­ning to the rules of intes­ta­cy…

Can an employ­er require an employ­ee to under­take a med­ical exam­i­na­tion? update

Employ­ers are reg­u­lar­ly con­front­ed with sit­u­a­tions in which they need to obtain fur­ther med­ical infor­ma­tion about injured or unwell employ­ees who for var­i­ous rea­sons, fail to coop­er­ate with employ­er requests for such infor­ma­tion and/​or to attend an employ­er nom­i­nat­ed doc­tor for a med­ical examination. There are a num­ber of Court deci­sions which…

Can you stand down your employees?

A com­mon ques­tion for employ­ers is whether and in what cir­cum­stances can they stand down an employee. At com­mon law there is no gen­er­al right to stand down or sus­pend an employ­ee with­out pay absent an express con­trac­tu­al term (see dis­cus­sion of cas­es at [65] to [73] of Coal & Allied Min­ing…

Com­mon sense pre­vails in an unfair dis­missal case

I often write about whacky deci­sions of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion which demon­strate the extra­or­di­nary lengths employ­ers have to go to, to avoid falling foul of the maze of employ­ment law rules and regulations. How­ev­er, the recent deci­sion in Geor­gia Sologinkin v Cos­met­ic Sup­pli­ers Pty Ltd T/A Coy is a vic­to­ry for…

Are you enti­tled to trade under your own name?

You some­times hear peo­ple say that they have a fun­da­men­tal right to trade under their own per­son­al name. There is some truth in this belief but there are impor­tant restric­tions to such an alleged right. There is a qual­i­fied com­mon law defence of ​“use of one’s own name” against an action for pass­ing…