With businesses around Australia compelled to meet extraordinary challenges throughout the Coronavirus epidemic, the Government has taken the decision to extend the temporary insolvency and bankruptcy protections until 31 December 2020. The original scheme was clearly designed to make it harder for any creditor to force a business into insolvency in response to a statutory [...]
The Whistleblower legislation was introduced in 2019 for the protection of any person who has reasonable grounds to suspect that they have information indicating that a company or its officer or employee has engaged in certain conduct that breaches specific acts of parliament that apply to the entity or its officers. Sometimes, people experiencing an employment dispute [...]
On 13 August 2020, the High Court of Australia overturned a decision made by the Full Federal Court of Australia in August 2019, that personal/carer’s leave under the National Employment Standards is calculated in working days, not hours. In Mondelez Australia Pty Ltd v AMWU & Ors [2020] HCA 29, the High Court clarified that: [...]
I am sure that over the last few months since WA locked down and locked out the infectious Covid-19 virus your lives and your businesses changed. Ours certainly did. I want to share with you what we did. Return to our original premises First we moved out of the Perth CBD after a decade of [...]
From our desks... It seems timely in this uncertain environment to send you our newsletter to let you know that we are still here and working for our clients at Havilah Legal. Like so many of the newsletters you will be seeing, we have taken what are the appropriate steps to ensure that both [...]
The outbreak of COVID-19 has given rise to issues that every employer must address, including employee entitlements and health and safety obligations. Some of the key issues are addressed below. Employers can direct employees who are sick with the coronavirus not to come to work and to get medical clearance from a doctor before returning [...]
Why is a Risk Management ‘framework’ important? No matter what the business decisions or activity, there is inherent risk at every step of the way. A business needs to manage its risks because they have a direct impact on the rewards. Generally, the greater the risk, the greater the possible returns, but taking a ‘long [...]
Recognising Doping as an International Issue The Olympic Charter and the International Convention against Doping in Sport 2005 was adopted in Paris on 19 October 2005 (called the “UNESCO Convention”). It recognised the necessity for both the; - prevention of, and; - the fight against, doping in sport as a critical part of the mission [...]
Most of us know that for de-facto couples, you can't get a divorce without first being married. Recently a client attended our offices requesting assistance with his divorce and the division of the matrimonial assets. When asked what date he married, the client explained he and his ex-partner never got married but they were still [...]
When is there a need to conduct a formal investigation? As a general rule, if a number of employees are involved, there is more than one incident complained about or there are a number of conflicting stories, a formal investigation is essential to ensure reliable findings. If the potential consequences are very significant for the [...]
