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COVID-19 | Mak­ing a Will in times of emergency

COVID-19 has sig­nif­i­cant­ly changed the way we do ordi­nary tasks. With the increas­ing restric­tions on trav­el, leav­ing the home and gath­er­ings, tasks we used to do every­day with ease have become more dif­fi­cult. This is even more so when it comes to mak­ing your Will.  Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, a Will needs to be…

COVID-19 Pod­cast | Michael Byrnes dis­cuss­es the Job­Keep­er scheme on 2GB

Part­ner Michael Byrnes dis­cussed the Job­Keep­er scheme with Brooke Corte and Scott Hay­wood on Mon­ey News on 2GB, 3AW and 4BC on 21 April 2020 (from 33.50). Link below.Michael Byrnes on 2GB — Tues­day 21 April 2020…

COVID-19 | Redun­dan­cy pay­ments dur­ing the crisis

Michael Byrnes, Part­ner and Emi­ly Capen­er, Solic­i­tor pro­vide an overview of two recent cas­es that con­sid­ered the pay­ment of redun­dan­cy dur­ing the COVID-19 crisis.  Redun­dan­cies are gen­er­al­ly dri­ven by fac­tors such as tech­no­log­i­cal advances, com­pa­ny restruc­tur­ing and busi­ness clo­sures. Now, of course, employ­ers and employ­ees alike need to deal with the…

COVID-19 | Wit­ness­ing the exe­cu­tion of doc­u­ments dur­ing the pandemic

What’s news in New South Wales? The Elec­tron­ic Trans­ac­tions Amend­ment (COVID-19 Wit­ness­ing of Doc­u­ments) Reg­u­la­tion 2020 (NSW) The COVID-19 Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Emer­gency Mea­sures) Act 2020 (NSW) includ­ed a reg­u­la­tion-mak­ing pow­er in sec­tion 17 of Elec­tron­ic Trans­ac­tions Act 2000 (NSW) (the Act) to pro­vide for altered arrange­ments for the sig­na­ture, wit­ness­ing or attes­ta­tion…

COVID-19 | Retail and Oth­er Com­mer­cial Leas­es (COVID-19) Reg­u­la­tion 2020

Below is a sum­ma­ry of the Regulation. What does it do? The object of the Reg­u­la­tion is to give effect to the Code and par­tic­u­lar­ly to: pro­hib­it and reg­u­late the usu­al enforce­ment rights of land­lords dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic peri­od; andrequire land­lords and ten­ants to rene­go­ti­ate the rent and oth­er terms of retail, com­mer­cial and…

COVID-19 | Too much time together….are you think­ing of leav­ing the Fam­i­ly Home?

Social dis­tanc­ing and trav­el restric­tions dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is cre­at­ing stress on fam­i­lies. This stress is height­ened sig­nif­i­cant­ly if you want to sep­a­rate from your part­ner. If you find your­self in a posi­tion when you can­not take it any­more and want to leave the fam­i­ly home, it is impor­tant that…

COVID-19 | Spousal Main­te­nance Appli­ca­tions and Mod­i­fi­ca­tion of a Spouse Main­te­nance Order

The health and eco­nom­ic chaos caused by COVID ‑19 has already proven to be far reach­ing in Aus­tralia and through­out the World. The over­all eco­nom­ic impact and evo­lu­tion of the virus is still unknown. Aus­tralia, for now, appear to have deflect­ed the dev­as­tat­ing health cri­sis expe­ri­enced in oth­er coun­tries, how­ev­er…

COVID-19 | Employ­ers and the COVID­Safe App

By Michael Byrnes, Part­ner and Emi­ly Capen­er, Solicitor The COVID­Safe app recent­ly released by the Depart­ment of Health is one mea­sure cur­rent­ly being under­tak­en by the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to facil­i­tate the process of con­tact­ing peo­ple who may have been exposed to coronavirus.  The mes­sage from author­i­ties is that the more Aus­tralians…

COVID-19 Pod­cast | Work­place law issues aris­ing from the COVID­Safe App

Michael Byrnes dis­cussed work­place law issues aris­ing from the COVID­Safe app with John Stan­ley on 2GB, 2CC and 4BC on 30 April 2020 (from 1.44:15). Lis­ten to the pod­cast here.…

COVID-19 Update | Omnibus (Emer­gency Mea­sures) (Com­mer­cial Leas­es and Licences) Reg­u­la­tions | 5 May 2020

On 1 May 2020 Vic­to­ria passed the COVID-19 Omnibus (Emer­gency Mea­sures) (Com­mer­cial Leas­es and Licences) Reg­u­la­tions 2020 (Reg­u­la­tions) to imple­ment the mod­i­fi­ca­tion of laws relat­ing to cer­tain retail leas­es and non-retail com­mer­cial leas­es and licences.Code not incorporatedDespite the Nation­al Cab­i­net Manda­to­ry Code of Con­duct — SME Com­mer­cial Leas­ing Prin­ci­ples dur­ing COVID-19 (Code)…

COVID-19 | Mak­ing it eas­i­er for busi­ness to oper­ate dur­ing COVID-19

Meet­ings As of 6 May 2020, com­pa­nies in Aus­tralia will be able to con­vene annu­al gen­er­al meet­ings and oth­er meet­ings pre­scribed under the Cor­po­ra­tions Act 2001 entire­ly online rather than face-to-face thanks to the Cor­po­ra­tions (Coro­n­avirus (Coro­n­avirus Eco­nom­ic Response) Deter­mi­na­tion (No.1) 2020.As con­tem­plat­ed in para­graph 5 of the Deter­mi­na­tion a com­pa­ny that has…

COVID-19 Pod­cast | Michael Byrnes dis­cuss­es the Job­Keep­er Scheme with John Stan­ley 2GB

Michael Byrnes dis­cuss­es the Job­Keep­er Scheme (and the legal aspects of rug­by league coach Wayne Ben­net­t’s hair­style edict!) with John Stan­ley on 2GB, 2CC and 4BC on 6 May 2020 (from 1:31.50).Click here to lis­ten to the podcast.…

COVID-19 | 3 rea­sons for the increase in unfair dis­missal claims

The FWC has seen a huge increase in unfair dis­missal claims. HRM asks Michael Brynes why this might be and what HR should be doing.View arti­cle here.…

COVID-19 | Con­struc­tion Works With­in Stra­ta Schemes

With the intro­duc­tion of the Envi­ron­men­tal Plan­ning and Assess­ment (COVID-19 Devel­op­ment – Con­struc­tion Work Days) Order 2020 on 31 March 2020 (the Order), stra­ta schemes may be faced with deci­sions to make regard­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion or com­mence­ment of build­ing works dur­ing the Gov­ern­ment imposed restric­tions and social dis­tanc­ing guidelines.  Impact of…

Is your stra­ta scheme functioning?

We recent­ly act­ed for a lot owner/​building man­ag­er in a Stra­ta Appli­ca­tion to the NSW Civ­il and Admin­is­tra­tive Tri­bunal (NCAT) suc­cess­ful­ly seek­ing orders for the removal of the exist­ing stra­ta com­mit­tee and the com­pul­so­ry appoint­ment of a stra­ta man­ag­er to the scheme under s237 of the Stra­ta Schemes Man­age­ment Act 2015 (SSMA 2015)…