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Press Release: Mer­i­tas Wel­comes DMAW Lawyers, Ade­laide, to the Membership

DMAW Lawyers will become an inte­gral part of the Aus­tralia & New Zealand net­work of firms as well as the world­wide net­work of 191 law firms locat­ed across 96 countries. This alliance will enhance DMAW Lawyers’ abil­i­ty to sup­port South Aus­tralian busi­ness inter­ests both nation­al­ly and internationally. DMAW’s Lawyer’s Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, Mr…

Work­place Health & Safety

It is not suf­fi­cient to sim­ply address these risks reac­tive­ly in the event of an acci­dent – employ­ers need to estab­lish and main­tain a sophis­ti­cat­ed safe­ty man­age­ment sys­tem. This entails the devel­op­ment and effec­tive pro­mul­ga­tion of poli­cies and pro­ce­dures, train­ing of work­ers in the safe­ty man­age­ment sys­tem and the imple­men­ta­tion of…

COVID-19 | The Fair­ness Prin­ci­ple in Stand­ing Down Employees

In the recent mat­ter of Mr Ryan La Plume v Thomas Foods Inter­na­tion­al Pty Lim­it­ed T/A Thomas Foods Inter­na­tion­al [2020] FWC 3690, the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (FWC) con­sid­ered an appli­ca­tion to deal with a stand down dis­pute aris­ing in the con­text of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. This mat­ter demon­strates the impor­tance of employ­ers…

COVID-19 | Updat­ed Job­Keep­er Scheme

On 21 July 2020, the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment announced that it would be extend­ing the Job­Keep­er pay­ment scheme for eli­gi­ble employ­ers until 28 March 2021. The Job­Keep­er scheme, which was orig­i­nal­ly due to come to an end on 27 Sep­tem­ber 2020, will now be tar­get­ed towards those busi­ness­es and not-for-prof­its which con­tin­ue…

Michael Byrnes dis­cuss­es the WHS law issues relat­ing to food deliv­ery rid­ers and gig econ­o­my workers

Michael Byrnes dis­cuss­es the Work Health & Safe­ty (WHS) law issues relat­ing to food deliv­ery rid­ers and gig econ­o­my work­ers gen­er­al­ly with John Stan­ley and Paul B. Kidd on 2GB, 2CC and 4BC on 30 July 2020 (from 41:40) To lis­ten to the pod­cast click here…

Address­ing Build­ing Defects in Stra­ta Schemes

Leg­isla­tive oblig­a­tions and func­tions for a stra­ta scheme can be over­whelm­ing in the first few years and it may take time to estab­lish a func­tion­ing stra­ta com­mit­tee. Obvi­ous­ly, the thought of defects in a stra­ta scheme are not what is on a lot own­er’s mind hav­ing just pur­chased a new unit. How­ev­er, with strict time…

Abuse from the Anti-Mask ​‘Activists’: The Oblig­a­tions of Employers

One very recent and unwel­come phe­nom­e­non dur­ing the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic in Aus­tralia has been the emer­gence of the anti-mask ​“activists” (often described using the recent­ly mint­ed pejo­ra­tive ​“Karen”). Media reports (large­ly based on social media posts) sug­gest they are espe­cial­ly preva­lent in Vic­to­ria, where masks in pub­lic have been made…

First 30 days | Hard­ings integration

To our val­ued clients and friends As most of you will already know, as of the 1 July 2020 the staff of Hard­ings Lawyers joined Swaab in their new­ly refur­bished offices.  With Covid-19 still hav­ing a major impact on office atten­dance with WFH arrange­ments and Part­ners and staff being on a ros­ter sys­tem to attend…

Swaab Con­nect | July 2020

In this edi­tion of Swaab Con­nect we announce a strate­gic mile­stone with the inte­gra­tion of Hard­ings Lawyers and Swaab effec­tive 1 July. We con­grat­u­late Sean Green­wood on his pro­mo­tion to Senior Asso­ciate in our lit­i­ga­tion team, Michael Byrnes and Emi­ly Capen­er exam­ine the recent deci­sion by the Full Bench of the FWC…

Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty in a Cyber World

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Pro­tect the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty in your website

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Your web­site users can expose you to copy­right infringement

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Claim­ing to be a mod­ern-day Mr Dar­cy was no defence to sex­u­al harassment

In the recent mat­ter of Hugh­es trad­ing as Beesley and Hugh­es Lawyers v Hill [2020] FCAFC 126 (Hugh­es v Hill), the Full Court of the Fed­er­al Court of Aus­tralia reject­ed a cat­e­gori­sa­tion of con­duct by a lawyer towards his employ­ee as roman­tic ges­tures akin to those of the well-known lit­er­ary fig­ure, Mr Dar­cy, rather…

Michael Byrnes fea­tured in HRM Online — 14 August 2020

In the first of a two-part guide to over­pay­ments, HRM cov­ers the basics of the law, and how to best engage an over­paid employee. View arti­cle here.…

Michael Byrnes dis­cuss­es the com­plex­i­ty of mod­ern awards and the IR sys­tem with John Stan­ley on 2GB, 2CC and 4BC

Michael Byrnes dis­cuss­es the com­plex­i­ty of mod­ern awards and the IR sys­tem with John Stan­ley on 2GB, 2CC and 4BC on 18 August 2020 (from 1:25:40) To lis­ten to the pod­cast click here…