Pub­li­ca­tions

Dec 22, 2011

Changes to claims on deceased estates

Cer­tain peo­ple such as a hus­band, wife, part­ner, chil­dren, grand­chil­dren and oth­ers are enti­tled to make a claim on an Estate of a deceased per­son if that per­son left the claimant with inad­e­quate pro­vi­sion in their Will or on intes­ta­cy (with­out a Will). By the Suc­ces­sion Amend­ment (Fam­i­ly Pro­vi­sion) Act 2008, the leg­is­la­tion in…

Dec 22, 2011

Swaab in BRW Mag­a­zine 9 Decem­ber 2010

Busi­ness Review Week­ly reports on the Best Places to Work in Aus­tralia for 2010. Swaab Attor­neys was the high­est rank­ing law firm on the list of 50 companies. …

Dec 22, 2011

Swaab employ­ment part­ner War­wick Ryan in Char­tered Secretaries 

In this Char­tered Sec­re­taries arti­cle, Swaab employ­ment part­ner War­wick Ryan exam­ines adverse action claims under the Fair Work Act, urg­ing employ­ers to be wary of pit­falls in the legislation. …

Dec 22, 2011

Swaab Legal Direc­tions — Issue 3 Decem­ber 2010

Swaab Legal Direc­tions — The third issue for 2010 of our quar­ter­ly newsletter. …

Dec 22, 2011

Build­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy update — Com­mer­cial Build­ings Manda­to­ry Dis­clo­sure Régime and Environment

In Brief — Mixed use build­ings, refur­bish­ments and Envi­ron­men­tal Upgrade Agreements The Com­mer­cial Build­ings Manda­to­ry Dis­clo­sure Régime has under­gone amend­ments, effec­tive 29 Novem­ber 2010, relat­ed to mixed use build­ings and refur­bish­ments. The Local Gov­ern­ment Amend­ment (Envi­ron­men­tal Upgrade Agree­ments) Bill 2010 facil­i­tates a financ­ing mech­a­nism for build­ing own­ers to imple­ment major long term…

Dec 22, 2011

Cloud com­put­ing and smart phones — Has your busi­ness updat­ed its IP policy?

In Brief — Smart devices and IT policy The increas­ing pro­lif­er­a­tion of smart devices pos­es a new secu­ri­ty risk for busi­ness­es. To deal with this risk, you may need to update your com­pa­ny’s IT pol­i­cy and ensure that it is implemented. Use of smart devices in business Most busi­ness­es are offer­ing either Black­ber­rys…

Dec 22, 2011

Fam­i­ly busi­ness­es and employ­ment law — How prob­lems arise and how to pre­vent them

In Brief — Employ­ment prob­lems relat­ed to the size of a fam­i­ly business Fam­i­ly busi­ness­es typ­i­cal­ly encounter employ­ment prob­lems once they reach a cer­tain size. These prob­lems can arise because of short­falls in HR train­ing, work­force man­age­ment, com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels, employ­ment pro­ce­dures, cri­te­ria for pro­mo­tion or pro­ce­dures for inves­ti­gat­ing inap­pro­pri­ate behav­iour, under­per­for­mance and complaints. How…

Dec 22, 2011

Sex­u­al harass­ment in sup­port­ed employ­ment — Risks for employ­ers and how to min­imise them

In Brief Christ­mas is the sea­son for many things, includ­ing inap­pro­pri­ate behav­iour in the work­place. Employ­ers need to be aware that sex­u­al harass­ment claims can result from actions which spring from the best inten­tions. What one per­son con­sid­ers to be friend­ly behav­iour can be seen by oth­ers as offen­sive and inappropriate…

Dec 22, 2011

Nego­ti­at­ing par­ent­ing arrange­ments after sep­a­ra­tion or divorce

In brief — Emo­tions can cloud judgement The biggest mis­take that peo­ple make when nego­ti­at­ing par­ent­ing arrange­ments is that they allow their own anger and hurt to cloud their judg­ment as to what par­ent­ing arrange­ments would be in the best inter­ests of their children. Best inter­ests of the child The Fam­i­ly Law Act…

Dec 22, 2011

Court hands down first fines for breach­es of sin­gle pric­ing law

On 4 Novem­ber 2010, the Fed­er­al Court ordered two restau­rants to pay penal­ties of $13,200 each for breach­ing the law requir­ing a sin­gle, all-inclu­sive price to be clear­ly stat­ed to con­sumers. This fol­lows the intro­duc­tion ear­li­er this year of new laws under the Trade Prac­tices Act (which from next year will be…