Legal

Ever wish you could go back in time to the day you submitted your university law enrolment form, and choose a completely different area to study?

More Australian businesses are allowing customers to post comments and feedback either on the business’ website or on their social media sites. With the benefits of customer interaction comes the risk of legal liability for customer comments on a business website.

The typical Australian family business owner is now 55-years-old. Retirement or cutting down their hours is on their radars, but very few are putting the right plans in place to make it happen.

So you have taken the plunge to start your own business. This article aims to provide a high level summary to guide you through the process of setting up your own business.

No matter what your business is, getting people back to work after an injury is not only critical to the worker’s recovery, but also critical to your bottom line.

Taking on an employee is a serious part of the business as there are many pitfalls that can bring you unstuck if the right processes are not followed. We focus on the legal aspects of hiring an employee from a tax office and superannuation stand point.

With administrations and liquidations steadily on the rise, more businesses are finding themselves having to deal with the fact that their trading partner has fallen into potentially fatal financial strife.

A prominent city billboard advertisement for corporate Christmas parties includes the slogan “Nothing HR can’t sort out in the morning”. The slogan is likely to strike a chord with many employers.

As Australian retailers gear up for the Christmas shopping season, they must be diligent in ensuring their compliance with the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

IP encompasses all registered or unregistered design rights, trade marks, patents, copyright, confidential information, trade or business names, database rights, know-how and technology. IP rights are inherently invisible, but can be very valuable assets if they are properly identified and protected.

Not only can your performance at work be monitored, employers are increasingly turning to social media to monitor their staff’s personal behaviour. But what legalities do managers need to be aware of? Here’s a look.

You should treat your home office as you would any other business premise, to ensure intellectual property is protected from thieves. If you’re the budget-conscious type, there are a number of ways to safe-proof a home office both cheaply and diligently.

Should you be worried about what you put in the cloud? There are some security and privacy issues that you do need to be aware of. For the prospective adopters of cloud computing, binding laws such as the US Patriot Act have brought risks to the table that most businesses are simply not comfortable dealing with.

When it comes to health and safety rules in the workplace, it’s better to be proactive rather than reactive to avoid problems. Here are three important areas to consider to ensure the minimisation of injuries due to rule breaches.

If you’re actively using your Facebook page for promotion, you should be aware of how you use it complying with advertising and customer standards.

There are benefits to running your business in partnership with a friend or family member, this could mean it was established with only the bare minimum of documents. Though this may not currently present an issue, it can cause succession headaches later.

Good documentation of workplace safety data helps leaders keep their fingers on the pulse of organisational safety by recording and reporting claims and premium data, which can have a positive flow-on effect on the premiums they have to pay.

Have you completed your proper due diligence on your business contracts? It’s crucial to plug the holes in your business contracts before you find yourself sinking.

Buying business insurance through a qualified adviser, rather than organising it yourself directly through the insurer, could be the difference between survival or closure in the face of a disaster. Here’s why.

For the most part, businesses run well, employees love their job, and employers are good people. But when it goes wrong, it can go badly wrong for both. The threat of legal action has greater consequences than you think – let’s put it in perspective.