Record US penalties recently imposed on car manufacturers for failures to deal appropriately with safety defects are a timely reminder to Australian manufacturers of their product safety obligations Partner Belinda Thompson Senior Associate Jaime McKenzie and Lawyer Ishwar Singh report ...

In a recent decision the Victorian Court of Appeal has held that parties to an arbitration agreement cannot avoid arbitration by seeking to bring the claim in a statutory tribunal Partner Nick Rudge and Lawyer James Waters report on a case that reinforces the trend of Australian courts to give ...

Parties involved in large-scale commercial transactions with non-lawyer third-party advisers need to be aware that communications with these advisers will rarely be protected by legal professional privilege following a recent Federal Court decision ...

The Queensland Government plans a major reform of the state land system to streamline processes reduce regulation and improve service delivery Partner John Beckinsale reports on the possible reforms which are outlined in a recently released discussion paper ...

We look at the circumstances where a court may not grant an injunction to restrain an employee from working with a competitor the Fair Work Commissions position on legal representation a case that helps clarify when restructuring roles will create genuine redundancy whether a gift to employees who ...

Further amendments to existing property legislation that aims to streamline the sale of property particularly in respect of the sale of off-the-plan lots have been introduced into the Queensland Parliament These amendments will be of substantial benefit to developers Partner Alister Fitzgerald ...

Changes to New Zealand's patent legislation which come into effect on 13 September 2014 will align it more closely to Australia's patent law ...

One of the more interesting possibilities raised in the Interim Report of David Murrays Financial System Inquiry is the introduction of product suitability requirements as a complement to the current disclosure regime The Interim Report presents a case for change but does not set out in detail what ...

The Senate has passed legislation for the establishment of an emissions reduction fund to purchase carbon abatement ...

ASICs recently published Strategic Outlook outlines its priorities for responding to the key risks it believes will affect investors and gives some interesting clues into what industry participants can expect from ASIC over the next 12 months such as more surveillance of insider trading breaches of ...