In a judgment handed down by the Federal Court in January 2020, Trivago, popular hotel comparison website, has been found guilty of misleading and deceiving the public as to the operation of its website. The misrepresentations have led consumers to believe they were obtaining discounts when, in real...

If you are planning on selling your business, and are being assisted by a solicitor, you will inevitably be asked for business documentation and history.

We regularly meet our clients once they have already accepted an offer on the business and are needing their contract prepared. More often than n...

As an employer, it is important that when you hire new employees, and as their employment changes, you set out clearly – and in writing – your expectations of them, and their responsibilities. Not only will this assist in managing expectations, but it may be important to clarify each party’s obligat...

In order to make a claim for unfair dismissal, one of the pre-conditions to be satisfied is that the employee must have served the statutory minimum employment period – for those engaged by a “small business employer”, the minimum period is 12 months.  For others, it is 6 months.

A small business e...

A Heads of Agreement (also known as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or Letter of Intent (LOI)) is a document outlining the proposed agreement between the parties to it. There are a number of commercial situations where a Heads of Agreement will be commonly prepared between the parties – for exam...

As of June 2019 the Australian Consumer Law (‘ACL’) has additional requirements for those businesses who provide a Warranty Against Defects for services (‘WAD’) in the provision of either:

• Services; or
• Goods with services.

What is a WAD?

This is a representation to consumers that if the good...

Can a bikini-style name infringe a trademark? This is an issue which the Federal Court of Australia addressed in a 2019 decision involving Pinnacle Runway.

The parties

• Pinnacle Runway Pty Ltd (“Pinnacle”) designs, manufactures, supplies and sells women’s clothing in Australia and overseas under
...

The Supreme Court has struck out a claim made by Ms Annika Karlsson in which she alleged that Griffith University had breached her trademark registration of the slogan “Know more. Do more.” The Court’s decision can be read here.

Registering the trademark – by both businesses

Griffith University fi...

The difficulties associated with a partly oral and partly written contract were considered by the Supreme Court in an April 2019 decision involving the Fields Group, a security company based on the Central Coast with approximately 120 security guards, and the much larger Wilson Security, with approx...

Restraints of Trade, often included in contracts of employment, are a valuable tool for employers to ensure that their commercial and competitive interests are preserved after the employee/employer relationship ends. However, it is important if you intend to include a restraint, that it be enforceab...

The Supreme Court made orders in 2017 regarding the winding up of a partnership that operated a real estate agency.  The two former partners agreed upon the existence and duration of their partnership, and upon a need for partnership accounts to be taken under the supervision of the Court, but they ...

As lawyers and Justices of the Peace, we are often asked to witness signatures on important documents such as Statutory Declarations.  As authorised witnesses, we must ensure that we comply with the witnessing requirements as set out in the Oaths Act for a number of reasons, otherwise we risk being ...