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New retail leas­ing dis­clo­sure oblig­a­tions now in force oth­er amend­ments proposed 

In brief – New land­lord dis­clo­sure state­ments and pro­posed amend­ments to retail leas­ing laws Retail land­lords now have new dis­clo­sure oblig­a­tions and also need to be aware of pro­posed changes under the Retail Leas­es Amend­ment Bill (2011). New dis­clo­sure oblig­a­tions for retail landlords As from 1 Jan­u­ary 2011, a new form of land­lord dis­clo­sure…

ASIC appeal upheld — Fortes­cue Met­als Group and Andrew For­rest mis­led investors

In brief — Full Fed­er­al Court over­turns 2009 ruling On 18 Feb­ru­ary 2011 the Full Fed­er­al Court unan­i­mous­ly over­turned the 2009 Fed­er­al Court rul­ing which cleared Fortes­cue Met­als Group (FMG) and its Chair­man and CEO Mr Andrew For­rest of mis­lead­ing and decep­tive conduct. Frame­work agree­ments with three Chi­nese companies The appeal relat­ed to…

Film and TV stu­dios appeal to High Court in iiNet copy­right case

In brief — Full Fed­er­al Court deci­sion on iiNet appealed to the High Court The con­sor­tium of film and tele­vi­sion com­pa­nies has gone to the High Court to appeal the deci­sion that iiNet did not autho­rise copy­right infringe­ment via its inter­net service.  Back­ground to iiNet case As men­tioned in our pre­vi­ous arti­cle, Appeal…

Mobile tele­phone facility/​tower leas­es — 3 things you need to know if you are a landlord

In brief — Landlord/​tenant rela­tion­ship, lease agree­ments and good faith negotiations If a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider (tel­co) wish­es to install a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions facil­i­ty on your land, you need to be aware of the points to be includ­ed in a lease agree­ment and the tel­co’s oblig­a­tion to nego­ti­ate in good faith. It is crit­i­cal that…

Can you dis­miss an employ­ee for a Face­book post?

In brief – Post­ings on social media can have con­se­quences for employees An employ­ee who thinks that they may say what they want about their employ­er on Face­book with total immu­ni­ty from con­se­quences is fool­ish, accord­ing to Fair Work Aus­tralia (FWA). The rise of social media Social net­work­ing sites such as Face­book…

Swaab car­bon emis­sions low­est of all AusLSA law firms

In Brief In this arti­cle Legal­ly green, Lawyers Week­ly mag­a­zine has high­light­ed the efforts of the eight found­ing mem­bers of the Aus­tralian Legal Sec­tor Alliance (AusLSA) to mea­sure and reduce their car­bon footprint. …

Swaab Legal Direc­tions — Issue 1 April 2011

Swaab Legal Direc­tions — The first issue for 2011 of our quar­ter­ly newsletter. …

Exten­sion of per­son­al lia­bil­i­ty of directors

Impor­tant changes in the law gov­ern­ing a director’s lia­bil­i­ty for com­pa­ny debts have been fore­cast. The antic­i­pat­ed changes will mean that a com­pa­ny director’s per­son­al lia­bil­i­ty for com­pa­ny debts will be extend­ed to include unpaid super­an­nu­a­tion guar­an­tee con­tri­bu­tions for their companies. Direc­tors are cur­rent­ly required to cause their com­pa­ny to pay deduc­tion tax­es…

Is your will valid?

Pre­scribed requirements It is impor­tant that your will is writ­ten and exe­cut­ed to com­ply with the require­ments as pre­scribed under the Suc­ces­sion Act 2006 (the Act) . Essen­tial­ly the require­ments of a valid will are set out in Sec­tion 6 of the Act. A will is gen­er­al­ly invalid unless: it is in writ­ing, either…

Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion guide for New South Wales

In Brief Fraud in land deal­ings has long been an issue in New South Wales. Now the leg­is­la­ture is tak­ing a pre­ven­ta­tive approach to try to min­imise the inci­dence of fraud.  Whether or not these ini­tia­tives accom­plish a reduc­tion of fraud­u­lent prop­er­ty relat­ed trans­ac­tions is to be seen. Land trans­ac­tions – sec­tion 117 Wit­ness certification From…

I’m sexy, but not that sexy — .xxx domain names

From 6 Decem­ber 2011 any indi­vid­ual, com­pa­ny or organ­i­sa­tion is per­mit­ted to apply for a new .XXX (or triple X) domain name. Now that the sun­rise peri­od has end­ed, eli­gi­bil­i­ty will be deter­mined on a first come, first served basis. .XXX domain names were approved by the Inter­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tion for Assigned Names and Num­bers…

Min­imis­ing Risks at End of Year Parties

In Brief End of year par­ties present one of the most dif­fi­cult chal­lenges for employ­ers in first­ly min­imis­ing risks of lia­bil­i­ty for the acts of their employ­ees and sec­ond­ly tak­ing appro­pri­ate dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures for mis­be­hav­ing employees. Explain­ing Accept­able Con­duct to Employees The most impor­tant step in first­ly avoid­ing any inci­dents at an end…

Round up of cor­po­rate law changes in 2011

Direc­tors per­son­al lia­bil­i­ty — Metz Holdings In a recent case, direc­tors were held per­son­al­ly liable for rep­re­sen­ta­tions giv­en by the com­pa­ny, despite the fact they were not per­son­al­ly par­ties to the con­tract. The court found that no fault was required on behalf of the direc­tors to prove lia­bil­i­ty and that the direc­tors…

AusLSA report on the envi­ron­men­tal impact of law firms

In March 2011, the Aus­tralian Legal Sec­tor Alliance (AusLSA) released a report on the con­sump­tion of ener­gy, water and paper and the pro­duc­tion of waste by its mem­ber law firms. …

Com­mence­ment of PPSA to be delayed

In brief – PPSA due to com­mence in Octo­ber 2011 In a recent devel­op­ment, the com­mence­ment date of the Per­son­al Prop­er­ty Secu­ri­ties Act 2009 (Cth) (PPSA) has been delayed from May 2011 to Octo­ber 2011. The defer­ral of the com­mence­ment date is the result of indus­try requests for more time to prepare. Estab­lish­ment…