Insights

Buying and selling a pharmacy | Why it makes good business sense to partner with a lawyer

Many complexities can arise during your pharmacy ownership journey. It makes good business sense to partner early with a trusted legal advisor to help guide and advise you through each critical stage of the buying and selling process. By partnering early with a lawyer with relevant pharmacy sector experience, you will avoid common pitfalls, manage […]

Deal or No Deal: from handshakes, heads of agreement to contracts – what’s legally binding, and what’s not?

Many court cases going back to the 1800s have considered whether real life sets of events or circumstances amount to a legally binding agreement, or, whether there is no actual binding agreement between the parties. As a pharmacy owner, or soon-to-be pharmacy owner, you will come across legal agreements in many forms. In your agreements […]

Online Reviews & Defamation

Meridian is increasingly receiving enquiries from both health practitioners and service providers seeking advice regarding negative reviews placed online by members of the public. Sometimes the reviews are thought to be unfair and unreasonable, and sometimes they cross over the line and are abusive and defamatory. With the ever increasing reliance on digital marketing and […]

Proposed reforms to strengthen the unfair contract term regime in standard form contracts under the Australian Consumer Law

The Treasury Laws Amendment (enhancing Tax Integrity and Supporting Business Investment) Bill 2022 has been introduced into Federal Parliament and, if passed, is designed to strengthen and expand the operation of the unfair contract term regime within the Australian Consumer Law. The Bill follows a review which found that the current regime was ineffective in […]

New Franchise Disclosure Register

As a result of the Competition & Consumer (Industry Codes-Franchising) Amendment (Franchise Disclosure Register) Regulations 2022, which commenced on 1 April 2022, by 14 November 2022 franchisors will be required to publish a franchise profile and publish on the online Franchise Disclosure Register, important information about its franchise. This is a mandatory requirement and failure […]

Dangers in negotiating commercial agreements

Commercial agreements vary in complexity, the length of time parties are involved in negotiations, and importantly, in the level of formality the parties employ as they ‘thrash out’ the terms. For these reasons, it is sometimes difficult to work out when the negotiations have reached a point where the law would regard the parties as […]

The importance of an up to date and relevant shareholders’ agreement

A shareholders’ agreement is a contract between a company’s shareholders (sometimes the company itself is also a party), setting out the rights and obligations of the shareholders in relation to the affairs of the company and how it is to be managed. If the company is the trustee of a unit trust the agreement relates […]

New disclosure obligations in New South Wales require increased transparency with consumers

From 1 January 2021, New South Wales Fair Trading is proposing to enforce new disclosure obligations (which were first introduced in July 2020) contained in the Fair Trading Act 1987 (NSW). The new obligations relate to how businesses that supply goods and services in New South Wales to consumers, communicate with customers and how intermediaries […]

Defamation – be careful what you post on social media

The Federal Court of Australia decision in Webster v Brewer [2020] FCA622 is a timely reminder that people need to be cautious about what they post on Facebook about other people and entities. The warnings in this article are also relevant to organisations that have their own Facebook pages. For reasons which are still unknown, […]

Retailers beware of advertising false promotions

The ACCC recently successfully prosecuted eyewear retailer, Oscar Wylee in the Federal Court of Australia which resulted in Oscar Wylee being ordered to pay $3.5m in penalties for misleading and deceptive conduct and making false and misleading representations about its charitable donations and affiliations in breach of the Australian Consumer Law. Between January 2014 and […]

Provident Capital Class Action

Meridian Lawyers is pleased to advise that the class action that was commenced on behalf of John and Rosemary Smith against Australian Executor Trustees Limited in relation to the failure of Provident Capital has settled in principle, subject to the completion of settlement documentation. The settlement will still need to be approved by the Court. […]

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