2851-2860 of 2870 results
New legislation introduces criminal offences for false accounting
The Federal Government has proposed new legislation that introduces two new criminal offences for false accounting into the Commonwealth Criminal Code The proposed false accounting offences are designed to help Australia comply with the OECDs Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public ...
Significant 'blow' for penalties claims
Today the Full Federal Court clarified the law of penalties as it applies to fees The key development is that in considering whether the amount of a fee is extravagant and exorbitant compared to the potential costs incurred in dealing with a failure to perform an obligation the court held that ...
Timing is everything: Major shareholders exclusions in D&O insurance policies
A recent Victorian Supreme Court decision has resolved a disputed construction of a major shareholder exclusion in a DO policy in the insurers favour after considering the broad commercial purpose of these provisions Partner Andrew Maher and Law Graduate Shelley Drenth report ...
The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement
After almost 10 years of negotiations between the nations on 17 November 2014 Prime Minister Abbott and President Xi announced the conclusion of negotiations on the China Australia Free Trade Agreement ChAFTA Once implemented the ChAFTA is expected to significantly reduce import barriers for ...
Decision confirms limits on general meeting shareholder activism
A recent Federal Court of Australia decision has reaffirmed that a companys board of directors has the primary role in managing a company and that there are limits on shareholders legal ability to control that management Partner and Co-Leader of Allens Head Office Governance team Greg Bosmans and ...
Long-awaited reform to company loss rules
The company loss recoupment rules have been amended to give effect to long-awaited reforms to the continuity of ownership tests This will assist companies that have multiple classes of shares with unequal rights to dividends capital distributions and voting power Partner Martin Fry and Associate Jay ...
Court takes an expansive view of threshold requirement for class actions against multiple respondents
A representative proceeding can only be commenced where seven or more group members have claims against the same person In proceedings with multiple respondents there has been conflicting authority as to whether each group member is required to have a claim against each respondent Last week in Cash ...
Isolated genetic material confirmed as patentable
In a unanimous decision the Full Federal Court has confirmed that genetic materials in their isolated form remain patentable in Australia The decision related to an appeal from an earlier Federal Court decision in which it was found isolated nucleic acids to be a manner of manufacture as required by ...
Does legal professional privilege apply to communications with third-party commercial advisers?
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 ...
Third parties are no bar to arbitration: A win for arbitration?
The Supreme Court of New South Wales has confirmed in a recent case that the impact of any dispute on third parties will generally not determine its arbitrability which rather will be determined on the proper construction of the arbitration agreement Partner Nick Rudge Senior Associate Alex Price ...