Victorian Planning Minister Richard Wynne has made his views on apartments known through comments to the media and at industry events about small apartments where he can touch the ceiling and where the shower is over the toilet Mr Wynne has now released a discussion paper on better apartments ...

The Victorian Government has introduced legislation to impose a 3 per cent stamp duty surcharge on foreign purchasers of residential land and a 05 per cent land tax surcharge on absentee owners of both residential and other land The proposed legislation is very broad and applies to both direct and ...

The Supreme Court of Queensland recently considered whether liquidated damages in a standard form construction contract were a penalty In a decision that traversed long-held doctrines on penalties and recent developments in emAndrewsem and Paciocco the court ruled that the obligation to pay ...

A recent advisory opinion from the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal outlines certain limits on the maintenance repair and compliance costs that a landlord can recover from tenants under Victorian leases particularly retail premises leases Partner John Beckinsale Special Counsel Christine ...

The Australian Government has announced wide reaching changes to Australias foreign investment framework that will apply from 1 December 2015 Partner Wendy Rae reports on the potential impacts of the changes which include new fees stricter enforcement and penalties and increased scrutiny around ...

Robo advice is another one of these phrases that we are suddenly seeing everywhere The idea offers some exciting opportunities for advice providers What are the regulatory issues And how can lawyers help ...

The exposure draft Bill for the taxation of 'attribution managed investment trusts' has been received with much derision. We consider the key implications ...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis governments and regulators have been busy identifying ways to better protect the financial system from future shocks Among these are measures for arming financial regulators with a more comprehensive crisis management toolkit Of particular concern are ...

The level of public interest and popular support for regulation targeting excessive surcharging makes card payment regulation likely to be one of the first areas of reform following the publication of the Final Report of the Financial System Inquiry the FSI Report ...

The Victorian Supreme Court has provided guidance on set-off rights in the context of insolvency particularly in relation to inconsistency between provisions of the Corporations Act and security of payment legislation Partner Nick Rudge and Lawyer James Waters report ...