After two years three rounds of public consultation and one aborted attempt Federal Parliament looks likely to pass legislation amending the rules governing when the Australian Taxation Office is required to refund excess GST to a taxpayer ...

In a recent decision of the Victorian Supreme Court a Melbourne municipal council was held liable to compensate a landowner for the costs that were incurred by the landowner in the course of complying with a clean-up notice issued under the Environment Protection Act 1970 Vic despite the pollution ...

Over the weekend in Paris two weeks of negotiations culminated in the adoption by all parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of a conference decision and Paris Agreement to address climate change The combined Paris Outcome commits parties to limit global temperature ...

The House of Representatives yesterday passed the Governments Bill to broaden the misuse of market power prohibition and the Bill will be introduced to the Senate shortly The Bill as passed removes the mandatory factors the courts would have had to consider in determining whether conduct was ...

A broadened definition of whistleblower reforms to establish greater protections for whistleblowers and increased sanctions for retaliatory conduct are some of the recommendations by a Senate committee looking into whistleblower protections in the corporate public and not-for-profit sector We expect ...

The Energy Security Board recently released a report summarising the results of its modelling of the Federal Governments new energy policy the National Energy Guarantee The Energy Security Boards report was considered by the COAG Energy Council at its meeting on 24 November 2017 and gives an insight ...

Legislative amendments have been passed in Queensland recently to strengthen the State Governments ability to administer its resource royalty regime Partner Ben Zillmann and Lawyer Giselle Kilvert consider the changes and what they mean for resource companies and importantly their executives ...

The Australian and Chinese governments have concluded negotiations on a free trade agreement that will reduce tariff barriers on the majority of Australian exports to China The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed that the treaty will include an investor-state dispute ...

The UN Human Rights Council has recently passed resolutions that provide for the establishment of a working group to develop an international legally binding human rights instrument for transnational corporations as well as commissioning a report on the pros and cons of this approach Partner Rachel ...

The Federal Government has released the final Terms of Reference for the root and branch review of Australias competition law and policy and announced the members of the expert panel who will lead the review over the next 12 months Partner Jacqueline Downes and Lawyer Lauren John look at the final ...