Insights from industry experts to mark 50 years of competition and consumer law in Australia
The 24 th of August marked 50 years since royal assent was granted by the Governor-General for federal competition and consumer legislation in Australia, initially through the Trade Practices Act 1974 ( TPA ) and later through the Competition and Consumer Act 2010...
Rolling in the deepfakes: Generative AI, privacy and regulation
Iris Rad and Alec Christie CLYDE & CO Introduction Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly permeating all aspects of modern society and commerce: from use in automated decision-making processes to facial recognition and generative AI. At the same time...
Side hustles in the digital age: legal implications for employers
Samuel Ellemor SHARROCK PITMAN LEGAL Cash is tight and the side hustles are in fashion. With rising interest rates, record-high house prices, and growing cost of living pressures, employees are looking to make extra money beyond their day job’s pay and are...
Understanding the New 'Right to Disconnect' Legislation: What Employers and Employees Need to Know
Ellie Bassingthwaighte, Senior Legal Writer- Practical Guidance Employment Introduction of the Right to Disconnect Starting 26 August 2024, Australian employees will gain a new 'right to disconnect' following significant amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009...
Casual employees, unfair dismissal and general protections: recent commission rulings
Introduction The evolution of workplace protections has shown little signs of slowing in recent times. More and more often, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) has provided decisions on the broadening protections for employees and correspondingly broadening responsibilities...
Contractor or employee? Contract remains king and the superannuation guarantee is still unsettled
Overview of the issue The issue as to who falls within the ordinary or extended meaning of “employee” under the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) (SGA Act) has arisen again, and this time, the result of the Full Court of the Federal Court...
Data breaches usher in a new era for Australian class actions
Recent major data breaches in Australia, suffered by telecom operator Singtel Optus, health insurer Medibank Private and financial services company Latitude Financial have led to a wave of class-action lawsuits exploring new ground in the country’s legal system...
Class Action confusion: access to justice in the face of regulatory change
Class actions are now a mainstay of the Australian litigation landscape. As of April 2023, there were 144 class action proceedings on foot across all registries of the Federal Court of Australia alone, not including the significant number of class actions on foot...
Beware of unfair contract terms
Significant increases to competition and consumer law penalties have commenced and sweeping reforms to the unfair contract terms regime will follow in 12 months’ time. Get ready, the ACCC has just been given a much bigger stick! What do these changes mean for...
Mind the gap — ASIC turns its mind to whistleblower policies and entities must “walk” the policy “talk”
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is calling on Australian CEOs, from public companies, large proprietary companies and corporate superannuation trustees to review their whistleblower policies and processes to ensure compliance with private...
Key considerations when preparing an estimate of legal costs
This article sets out several key considerations for legal practitioners, barristers, and litigators when preparing a cost estimate, and addresses the following questions. Why is providing an estimate of legal costs important? How should you draft the costs...
Why knowing how to monitor state and federal legislation is critical
Thousands of measures are proposed across Australia annually, and hundreds end up being legislated, ranging from relatively minor, to wide-ranging policy that can have major social, economic, or industrial significance. This was the case even during the Covid-19...
A question of notice: employment contract’s implied term of reasonable notice versus the Fair Work Act’s notice provisions.
Courts have had to decide many cases in which a dismissed employee claims damages for breach of contract, the alleged breach being the failure to give the amount of notice that was implied into the contract (because there was no express term specifying the period...
Building rapport during online dispute resolution: different, difficult, doable
The rapidly changing court protocols amidst the COVID-19 pandemic have posed tremendous challenges for barristers, solicitors and their clients. With dispute resolution and mediation via video technologies becoming a more typical way of resolving legal disputes...
Respect at work, safe workplaces remain far from reach for Australian employees
Amid headlines listing COVID numbers & quarantine mishandling incidents across the states, Australia attracted global attention earlier this year with stories emerging from Parliament that detailed sexual harassment, assault, inappropriate behaviour, bullying and...