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iiNet may have pre­vailed in copy­right infringe­ment case, but ISPs should beware 

In Brief After much delib­er­a­tion, the iiNet mat­ter has been laid to rest with the High Court uphold­ing the Full Fed­er­al Court deci­sion that iiNet is not liable for the copy­right infring­ing actions of its customers. Ulti­mate­ly, the case turned on what it meant to ​“autho­rise” con­duct in breach of sec­tion…

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…

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…

Down, down, prices are down … or are they?

In Brief Retail­ers must not mis­lead cus­tomers about the amount of mon­ey they are sav­ing dur­ing adver­tised sale periods. ACCC v Jew­ellery Group Pty Lim­it­ed (No 2) [2013] FCA 14 Last month, the Fed­er­al Court found that Zamel’s Jew­ellers engaged in mis­lead­ing or decep­tive con­duct and made false or mis­lead­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tions by dis­trib­ut­ing…

Sex­u­al Harass­ment case results in $100,000 award­ed in damages

In brief — GLS v PLP (Human Rights) [2013] VCAT 221 A recent mat­ter before the Vic­to­ri­an Civ­il and Admin­is­tra­tive Tri­bunal (VCAT) has result­ed in a large award of dam­ages to a female grad­u­ate lawyer who was sex­u­al­ly harassed dur­ing her prac­ti­cal legal train­ing placement. Background VCAT sup­pressed the iden­ti­ties of the par­ties, refer­ring to the…

Cel­lar­mas­ter Wines must swal­low a $110,000 penal­ty from ACMA

In Brief ACMA’s most recent­ly pub­li­cised enforce­ment action, against Cel­lar­mas­ter Wines Pty Ltd (part of the Wool­worths group) acts as a time­ly reminder that every busi­ness must take suf­fi­cient care in man­ag­ing its respon­si­bil­i­ties under the Spam Act 2003 (Act). Swaab has observed that ACMA has ramped up enforce­ment action in…

$105,000 award­ed for defam­a­to­ry tweets

In Brief The Dis­trict Court of NSW has ordered a Defen­dant who post­ed defam­a­to­ry state­ments on Twit­ter and Face­book about a local school teacher, to pay $105,000 in com­pen­sato­ry dam­ages .This deci­sion, the first of its kind in Aus­tralia, sends a clear mes­sage that per­son­al attacks using social media will not be tolerated. The Facts…

Swear­ing at a boss, is it always a sack­able offence?

In Brief In a recent deci­sion by the Fair Work Com­mis­sion, Deputy Pres­i­dent Wells found against the com­pa­ny that sum­mar­i­ly dis­missed an employ­ee for abus­ing the man­ag­ing direc­tor of the company.  The com­pa­ny was an SME and the man­ag­ing direc­tor and the garbage truck dri­ver were hav­ing a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion which got heat­ed…

“Buy­ing food, drinks and women”; an assess­ment of par­ties’ con­duct as it relates to fam­i­ly law

Par­ties who have been in a de fac­to rela­tion­ship (het­ero­sex­u­al or same sex) or mar­riage and have sep­a­rat­ed some­times ask if his or her (or the oth­er par­ty’s) con­duct has any impact on their finan­cial set­tle­ment. Com­mon ques­tions include: “Will I get more if my partner/​spouse has cheat­ed on me?” “Will I get more if…

Employ­ment law myth No.4: ​“If they’ve got an ABN, they’re an inde­pen­dent contractor”

A fre­quent area of con­fu­sion in employ­ment law is the use of inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors. In par­tic­u­lar, whether some­one engaged as a con­trac­tor would in real­i­ty be found to be an employ­ee at law. The con­fu­sion is under­stand­able – there are dif­fer­ent tests as to when a per­son is an ​“employ­ee” under var­i­ous…

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…

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.6: ​“If I pay them a salary, the award does­n’t apply”

Most employ­ees in Aus­tralia are cov­ered by an indus­try or occu­pa­tion-spe­cif­ic mod­ern award which pro­vides for min­i­mum terms and con­di­tions whilst so employed. Impor­tant­ly, the awards set min­i­mum pay rates depend­ing on the employ­ee’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion under the award. The clas­si­fi­ca­tion will (depend­ing on the award in ques­tion) be deter­mined by…

It’s mine, I got it after we broke up

In fam­i­ly law dis­putes it is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that an inher­i­tance or oth­er large sum received after sep­a­ra­tion will be exclud­ed from the prop­er­ty pool to be divid­ed between the par­ties. This issue was dealt with in the recent case of Calvin & McTi­er [2017] FAM­CAFC 125. The Full Court of the…

I’m late com­ply­ing with Fam­i­ly Court Orders, no one will mind

Not nec­es­sar­i­ly. In a recent Fam­i­ly Law case the hus­band found out the hard way that he should not have delayed com­ply­ing with Court Orders for his prop­er­ty settlement. The case of Black­well & Scott [2017] FAM­CAFC 77 involved a cou­ple who at the end of their 10 year de fac­to rela­tion­ship agreed to a prop­er­ty…