An exposure draft of proposed legislative amendments designed to reduce the compliance burden for businesses has been released by the Federal Government The amendments include long-awaited changes to the dividend payment rules the abolition of the 100 member rule and updates to remuneration ...

Following the release of the final terms of reference for the root and branch review of Australias competition law and policy the review panel has released an issues paper and a fact sheet about the review Partner Kon Stellios reports ...

The NSW Government has released a draft Biodiversity Offsets Policy for Major Projects that will apply to the assessment of State Significant Development and State Significant Infrastructure Partner Paul Lalich Senior Associate Trent March and Lawyer Dennis Smith consider the implications of the ...

Australia and japan have enetered into an economic partnership agreement to reducel tariff barriers on the majority of Australian exports to Japan. In contrast to the recently concluded Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement, it does not include an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. ...

Queenslands Department for Housing and Public Works has released details of fundamental amendments to the Building and Construction Industry Payments Act proposed to come into effect this year Partner Dan Young and Overseas Practitioner Andrew Middleton report on the key reforms proposed and their ...

The Ministerial Advisory Committee appointed to review the Victorian State Planning Policy Framework has released a draft version of a new Planning Policy Framework that reorganises the policy framework into themes and updates the policy content to include new policies to support Plan Melbourne and ...

We look at the inclusion of investor-state arbitration provisions in the recent Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the possible inclusion of such provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership a Singapore Court of Appeal decision that means parties challenging the jurisdiction of a tribunal have ...

The Papua New Guinean Government has continued to take significant steps in progressing its anti-corruption agenda in the first quarter of 2014 Partner Allan Mana Senior Associates Sarah Kuman and Michael Gomm and Lawyer Anthony Graham report on recent developments in Papua New Guinea and their ...

The Federal Government has taken the first step towards achieving its announced intention of abolishing the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and transferring some of its functions to the Australian Taxation Office and the yet-to-be-established National Centre for Excellence ...

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 ...