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Employ­ment law myth No. 3: ​“Oral con­tract? It’s not worth the paper it’s writ­ten on!”

There is no gen­er­al require­ment for employ­ees to be giv­en a writ­ten con­tract. That is not to say it is not strong­ly advis­able to have one in place, not least because there will be less room to argue about the terms of the employ­ment in the future. It is impor­tant to note…

Is a ​“Trans­fer Grant­i­ng Ease­ment” enough to sat­is­fy a deferred com­mence­ment condition?

Is a ​“Trans­fer Grant­i­ng Ease­ment” enough to sat­is­fy a deferred com­mence­ment con­di­tion? Mau­ro Polet­ti v Inner West Coun­cil [2017] NSWLEC 1325 Why is Polet­ti important? This case con­firms that reg­is­tra­tion of an ease­ment is required to give cer­tain­ty and it is rea­son­able for the ease­ment to be required to be reg­is­tered pri­or to the…

Some obser­va­tions on the approach to val­u­a­tions, land tax claims and the ​‘actu­al use of land’

Some obser­va­tions on the approach to val­u­a­tions, land tax claims and the ​‘actu­al use of land’: Car­lewie Pty Ltd v Roads and Mar­itime Ser­vices [2017] NSWLEC 78 Why is Car­lewie important? The Appli­cant ran some inter­est­ing argu­ments on val­u­a­tion approach­es in this mat­ter, and the Court has made it clear that sec­tion 5…

Con­struc­tion relat­ed impacts should be con­sid­ered in staged devel­op­ment applications

Con­struc­tion relat­ed impacts should be con­sid­ered in staged devel­op­ment appli­ca­tions: Bay Sim­mer Invest­ments Pty Ltd v State of New South Wales [2017] NSW­CA 135 Why is Bay Sim­mer important? Bay Sim­mer clar­i­fies the inter­pre­ta­tion of sec­tion 83B of the Envi­ron­men­tal Plan­ning and Assess­ment Act 1979. To be a staged devel­op­ment appli­ca­tion, the appli­ca­tion must…

A con­di­tion using the term ​“Appli­cant” can impose a restric­tion relat­ed to the iden­ti­ty of the user

A con­di­tion using the term ​“Appli­cant” can impose a restric­tion relat­ed to the iden­ti­ty of the user only – and may not ​“run with the land”: Dravin Pty Ltd v Black­town City Coun­cil [2017] NSWLEC 38 Why is Dravin important?  We are prob­a­bly all a bit lazy about throw­ing around phras­es like ​“in rem” and…

Do ​“out­er lim­its” employ­ment con­tracts have a future?

Intro­duc­tion The offer­ing of a series of ​“fixed term” con­tracts to employ­ees (often by the use of ​“out­er lim­it” or ​“max­i­mum term” con­tracts), has been seen as an attrac­tive strat­e­gy for employ­ing per­sons and then hav­ing their employ­ment ter­mi­nate with­out attract­ing the unfair dis­missal pro­vi­sions of indus­tri­al rela­tions leg­is­la­tion. An ​“out­er…

Trade mark pro­tec­tion against par­al­lel importers 

When an over­seas man­u­fac­tur­er exports to Aus­tralia, it may choose to set up a dis­trib­u­tor in Aus­tralia under an exclu­sive dis­tri­b­u­tion agree­ment. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the exclu­sive Aus­tralian dis­trib­u­tor, unau­tho­rised par­ties may source and sell in Aus­tralia gen­uine prod­ucts which may have been orig­i­nal­ly man­u­fac­tured and trade marked by the over­seas man­u­fac­tur­er…

Work­place sur­veil­lance in NSW: hav­ing a com­put­er sur­veil­lance pol­i­cy is a manda­to­ry requirement 

There is a view in some busi­ness­es that the imple­men­ta­tion of writ­ten work­place poli­cies are some­thing of a ​“nice to have” or an ​“option­al extra”, and are ulti­mate­ly a mat­ter of choice for the employer. Whilst there may be no manda­to­ry require­ment to have a pol­i­cy on many work­place mat­ters, the sit­u­a­tion in respect…

Employ­ment law myth No.5: ​“If they’re not per­form­ing well, I can extend their probation”

Over the next few weeks, we’re dis­pelling some com­mon­ly held employ­ment law mis­con­cep­tions, in a series of short arti­cles. Warn­ing – may con­tain spoilers! Many employ­ers con­sid­er that start­ing new employ­ees off on an ini­tial pro­ba­tion­ary peri­od is a use­ful way to assess their suit­abil­i­ty for the role, before decid­ing to offer them…

Employ­ment law myth No.7: ​“There’s no point hav­ing a restraint of trade in an employ­ment contract”

It is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that courts don’t enforce ​“restraints of trade” (those claus­es in employ­ment con­tracts pre­vent­ing for­mer employ­ees from com­pet­ing with their pre­vi­ous work­place, solic­it­ing their clients and/​or poach­ing staff). In truth, courts will and fre­quent­ly do, pre­vent for­mer employ­ees from act­ing in breach of their con­trac­tu­al restraints. That is…

Unusu­al wills and where to find them: What makes a valid will?

With the advent of tech­nol­o­gy, courts have had to grap­ple with dif­fi­cult ques­tions of whether to accept new forms of ​“doc­u­ments” as wills. In New South Wales, the Court has pre­vi­ous­ly held a DVD record­ing was a valid cod­i­cil (see our analy­sis of the case here). More recent­ly, in Nichol v Nichol [2017]…

Redun­dan­cies: New case sheds some light on con­sul­ta­tion and rede­ploy­ment obligations

Depend­ing on how an employ­er goes about things, ter­mi­nat­ing staff who are sur­plus to require­ments, can have very dif­fer­ent legal con­se­quences. This arti­cle looks at the lessons for employ­ers in this sit­u­a­tion as appar­ent from deci­sions by the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (FWC) and the Aus­tralian Indus­tri­al Rela­tions Commission. The Fair Work…

Quirks in mod­ern awards #1: One mon­th’s notice of ter­mi­na­tion under the Pro­fes­sion­al Employ­ees Award

The major­i­ty of employ­ees in Aus­tralia are cov­ered by an indus­try / occu­pa­tion spe­cif­ic mod­ern award. Whilst many of the awards con­tain sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions, in this series of occa­sion­al arti­cles we exam­ine unusu­al award claus­es which are some­times missed by employers. Most mod­ern awards con­tain word­ing in rela­tion to notice along…

Quirks in mod­ern awards #2: Five or six weeks’ annu­al leave under the Nurs­es Award 2010

The major­i­ty of employ­ees in Aus­tralia are cov­ered by an indus­try / occu­pa­tion spe­cif­ic mod­ern award. Whilst many of the awards con­tain sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions, in this series of occa­sion­al arti­cles we exam­ine unusu­al award claus­es which are some­times missed by employers. Most mod­ern awards con­tain word­ing in rela­tion to annu­al leave…

Quirks in mod­ern awards #3: No ​“small busi­ness” exemp­tion for redun­dan­cy pay under cer­tain awards

The major­i­ty of employ­ees in Aus­tralia are cov­ered by an indus­try / occu­pa­tion spe­cif­ic mod­ern award. Whilst many of the awards con­tain sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions, in this series of occa­sion­al arti­cles we exam­ine unusu­al award claus­es which are some­times missed by employers. Most mod­ern awards con­tain word­ing in rela­tion to redun­dan­cy pay…