Insights

The Importance of a Shareholders’ Agreement In the previous issue of Commercial Insights, we wrote about the utility and importance of a shareholders’ agreement in protecting the rights of a minority holding, as illustrated by the recent case of SDW2 Pty Ltd v JLF Corporation Pty Ltd & Ors[1] in the Supreme Court of Queensland. […]

With so much information publicly available, you must be careful not to infringe copyright when you use another person’s material. How can you better comply with Australian copyright laws? What is copyright? Copyright is protection over the way an idea or information is expressed. It is not the idea or expression that is protected, meaning […]

Working as a Fitness Professional (FP) can be a rewarding career in helping others achieve their health and fitness goals, but the responsibilities also carry a number of substantial and potential legal and business risks, so it is always a good idea to check that you, and your business, are as well protected as you […]

New legislation has recently been introduced which was sparked by the discovery of a number of large organisations found to have engaged in systematic underpayments and exploitation of workers. The Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act 2017 provides the Fair Work Ombudsman with greater investigative and enforcement powers, introduces penalties for providing false or […]

Most business partnerships do not last forever. Each year Meridian deals with many disputes between business partners. Disputes often happen because the relevant documentation is unsatisfactory or out of date, resulting in the partners having different views on how to deal with commercial matters. Business partners part company for many reasons. They could simply wish […]

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (‘AHPRA’) has applauded recent amendments[1] to the Health Practitioner Regulation Agency National Law Act 2009 (the ‘National Law’), which it says will provide additional protections for the public. The amendments, passed in Queensland Parliament, will apply to all jurisdictions except for Western Australia and South Australia where separate legislation […]

On 19 October 2017 the COAG Health Council announced the first appointments to the Paramedicine Board of Australia. The Paramedicine Board was established following amendments to the Health Practitioner National Law (the National Law) in September 2017. Together with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulations Agency (AHPRA), the Paramedicine Board will now begin work in preparation […]

The potential for inadvertent privacy breaches in the age of third party web providers became all too apparent for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (the “Blood Service”) recently, after it was discovered that the personal information relating to approximately 550,000 prospective blood donors was leaked on 5 September 2016. The circumstances of the breach […]

The Federal Court in Victoria recently considered an appeal by ASIC against a decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) which arose out of a rather bizarre set of circumstances.  In the AAT proceedings, ASIC sought a banning order pursuant to Section 920A(1) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Act) in respect of a […]

From 29 September 2017, public companies may offer ordinary shares to retail investors under the equity-based crowd-sourced funding regime through a licensed CSF intermediary’s platform. The CSF amendment will allow small to medium-sized businesses and start-ups to raise capital by issuing shares to retail investors without the regulatory burden of traditional fundraising provided that the […]