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...
Determining your obligations under the SOCI Act
A crucial step for organisations in the wake of recent events We are living in a world where a ‘simple’ software hiccup brings entire nations to a grinding halt. At least that’s the reality we faced during the recent ‘CrowdStrike Incident’ – a digital disaster...
Employer liability for Psychosocial hazards caused to an employee: Kozarov v Victoria [2022] HCA 12 (Kozarov)
In Kozarov v Victoria [2022] HCA 12 (Kozarov), the High Court decided an employer had a common law duty to take reasonable steps to manage mental health risks inherent to an employee’s job. This duty existed regardless of whether the employee showed warning signs...
ACCC 2024/2025 Compliance and Enforcement Priorities
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has announced its annual compliance and enforcement priorities, providing Australian businesses and their legal advisors with a practical roadmap of the industries and types of conduct that will face increased...
The unseen struggle: Identifying and responding to the risk of psychiatric injury
Charles Power and Fiorella Chiavetta HOLDING REDLICH Employers have a non-delegable duty of care to their employees to provide a safe system of work and to take reasonable steps to prevent reasonably foreseeable injuries. This paramount duty arises under both...
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...
The Internet’s “bizarre” bazaar: ACCC enforcement on digital marketplaces
This article comes from the experts behind the Internet Law Bulletin which covers a range of legal issues posed by the Internet and online services: issues as diverse as copyright, defamation, online dispute resolution, privacy, trade practices and criminal law...
ACCC 2023/2024 Compliance and Enforcement Priorities
On 7 March 2023, the Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Gina Cass-Gottlieb, announced the ACCC’s 2023/2024 enforcement and compliance priorities and confirmed its enduring priorities. The priorities span across both competition...
If you wanted to, could you pay the ransom for a cyber attack?
After nearly a week, the details of the Optus cyber attack are still unclear. At one point, it was thought that confidential data relating to 10,000 unlucky Optus customers had potentially been leaked by the now infamous Optus hackers. Passport details, dates of...
A crisis management guide for in-house counsel
Preparing for a crisis? Natural disasters, power cuts, industrial accidents, stakeholder activism or cybercrime, or simply the loss of a partnership contract are only some of the events that could precipitate a crisis, resulting in damage to your organisation’s...
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...
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...
How to protect your IP without making a groundless or unjustified threat
One of the most common and effective means of a party acting to protect its intellectual property (IP) is by sending (or having a lawyer send) a letter of demand, with such letters forming a key part of the day-to-day practice of many IP lawyers. However, these...