Insights
Trust Deeds holding residential land in NSW must be amended by 31 December 2020
The Duties Act 1997 and the Land Tax Management Act 1956 have been recently amended to state that discretionary trusts will be deemed to be a 'foreign trust' if the terms of the trust do not prevent, under an irrevocable clause, a foreign person from being a...
ClarkeKann Bolsters Teams with new hires and promotions
ClarkeKann has strengthened its teams with new senior appointments and internal promotions. The corporate and commercial practice has welcomed new Special Counsel Elouise Monck and Senior Associate Patricia Martins, whilst also promoting team members Alison Rees to...
Terminating an "off the plan" contract for the sale of property: making the right decision counts
Introduction For many people, the purchase of a residential property represents the biggest purchase of their lives. Although such transactions are reasonably straight forward, sometimes things can go wrong and can become very complicated. Recently the NSW Court of...
Federal Government announces streamlined restructuring mechanism to COVID-19 impacted businesses
The Federal Government has announced new insolvency reforms that are intended to give businesses more control over how they restructure debts in recovering from the COVID-19 financial downturn. These reforms are especially important with the temporary protections for...
Amendments to insolvency and corporations laws extended until 31 December 2020
In what for many was a controversial move in the first place, amendments to insolvency and corporations laws (Relief Laws) have now been extended to 31 December 2020.The Relief Law were initially enacted in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and were due...
When Loans Go Bad: Supreme Court sides with ANZ on Unconscionable Conduct Claim
Currently, due to the pandemic, there are a number of restrictions in place that make it impractical or undesirable for lenders to recover outstanding debts. These protections will expire in September 2020, which will place additional pressure on borrowers to meet...
AFCA test case to determine if exclusion clauses are effective amid COVID-19 business interruption claims
Introduction Many businesses are in the process of assessing how sustainable continued operations will be after the COVID-19 pandemic ends. With temporary protections under the Corporations Act, such as changes to the insolvency rules, coming to an end on 25 September...
Centralised business information register and the introduction of Director identification numbers
Administrative changes coming to your business The Federal Government has recently announced the Modernising Business Registers (MBR) program. The MBR consists of a legislative package of five bills, collectively known as the Registries Modernisation Law (RML). It is...
Reforms to limit tax concessions for minors receiving income from testamentary trusts
On 1 July 2020 the Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 3) Bill 2019 came into force. This Bill reformed the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth) (ITAA), and was intended to limit the amount of tax concessions available to minors for income from a testamentary...
Non-disclosure by an insured does not always mean the insurer can avoid liability for a claim
A potential insured has a responsibility to disclose all information that is needed for an accurate risk assessment by an insurer, at the time of entering into a policy. Failure to disclose relevant information may entitle the insurer to avoid liability for a claim....
Businesses liable for third party comments made on social media posts
Social media is an important medium for businesses to market brands and products to a wider audience. Up until now, businesses have been relatively shielded from liability for defamation for third party comments made on social media pages that a business maintains....
The COVIDSafe app – Recent changes to the law and your privacy
Privacy concerns have plagued the introduction of the COVIDSafe app (App). In response, strict privacy protections for users of the App have now been enshrined in law via The Privacy Amendment (Public Health Contract Information) Act 2020 (the Act) which introduces...
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