If you're looking for legal answers to business law-related issues, then browse and comment on the short blog entries below.
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The authors of this blog are lawyers of Holley Nethercote Commercial Lawyers Melbourne.
30 November 2009
A whistleblower is an individual who discloses illegal activities which are either occurring within or perpetrated by an organisation with which they are associated (most commonly as an employee). Whistleblowers have proven to be a key resource for detecting corporate and financial services misconduct. This article outlines the protections that whistleblowers receive from reprisal or liability as a result of disclosing information about corporate misconduct. It also explains some deficiencies that have been highlighted relating to the current regime, and changes that have been proposed by the Federal Government in their October 2009 options paper relating to whistleblowers.
30 September 2009
For many businesses, owning their own business premises is not an option. So if your business is one which has to lease premises to conduct its business, in all likelihood you will have entered into a retail lease. If the lease is coming up for renewal, or you are looking to enter into a new lease either at the same premises or elsewhere, there will be many questions and issues to address. What documents should you receive? What should you look out for? What expenses are you obligated to pay? And so on.
3 August 2009
A number of new national workplace relations law came into effect on 1 July 2009 - with more changes coming into force on 1 January 2010.
13 July 2009
National legislation to regulate unfair contract terms has just been introduced into Parliament. You will need to check whether the standard form contracts that you use will comply.
25 May 2009
A new court decision may make in-house counsel attract similar liability to company officers.
27 April 2009
If you have a turnover of more than $3 million or are subject to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, the Privacy Act applies to you.
6 April 2009
Directors of corporations need to be aware that the companies they manage can be liable for offences, even where the offences have a fault, or “state of mind”, element. A culture of legal compliance needs to be created and maintained in order to prevent corporate liability for the acts of its staff – at all levels of the organisation.
19 February 2009
The Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) requires persons carrying on a financial services to either hold an Australian Financial Services Licence (“licence”) or be a appointed as a representative of a licensee. The authorised representative agreement, apart from satisfying the legislative requirements, is fundamental in terms of setting out both the general boundaries and the specific details which will govern the relationship between a licensee and its authorised representative.
29 January 2009
The broad definition of what constitutes a “franchise” under the Franchising Code of Conduct has led to some financial services licensees treating their authorised representatives as franchisees.
22 December 2008
One of the core pre-election promises of the Labor Party during last year’s election campaign was to make the WorkChoices Act fairer, and also to scrap the unfair dismissal laws.