This case is a reminder of the potentially devastating commercial consequences of knowingly assisting in breaches of fiduciary duties owed by employees to their former employers to protect business connections and other confidential information.  In this case, the High Court ordered a business to account for its entire capital value of $14.8 million which included both actual and anticipated profits, and profits which may not have been the ‘direct result’ of knowing assistance in the breach.

In November 2018, the European Data Protection Board formally adopted new draft guidelines on the territorial scope of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. The guidelines are currently subject to a public consultation process.

The guidelines are designed to provide “a common interpretation” and clarification of the territorial scope of the GDPR, in particular where the relevant data controller or processor is established outside of the EU. This update summarises some of the key takeaways.

Written by Andrew Hii and Mitch Bennett

The Government’s contentious encryption legislation (Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 (Cth)) (‘the Act’) passed both houses of Parliament late Thursday (6 December), the last Parliamentary sitting day of 2018. The Act commenced on 9 December.

Click to read the full article.

Recent changes to casual employee rights, modern awards and proposed changes to contractor arrangements will impact all employers. In this update we take a look at the changes that came into effect from 1 December 2018 and what you need to be aware of if you are undertaking a review of your current policies and contracts to ensure you are compliant with the new provisions.

The Federal Court has held that a board may postpone a meeting called by shareholders under section 249F in circumstances where there is a power in the company’s constitution permitting the board to postpone meetings and such power is exercise by the board for a proper purpose and the postponement period is reasonable.  In such circumstances, the Court held that the postponement was not an unlawful interference with the statutory right of shareholders under section 249F.

Written by Andrew Hii and Isobel O'Brien

The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Act) was passed by the Australian Federal Parliament on 29 November 2018.

The Act, which has not yet commenced, establishes a mandatory reporting regime, under which large businesses and certain Commonwealth entities are required to make annual public reports on the risks of modern slavery in their operations and supply chains, and the acts that they have taken to address those risks. 

Our report discusses how to determine whether the Act applies to your organisation and, if it does, what you have to do to comply. It also sets out what must be included in a Modern Slavery Statement, which should give an overview of an entity’s general process for assessing, preventing and addressing modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.

The full text of the Modern Slavery Bill is available here.

Earlier this year, NSW also passed a Modern Slavery Act with a similar reporting requirement, which we discuss in a previous article . We compare the key points between the Commonwealth and NSW Acts in the attached.

Read our report to find out how the Act could impact your business and the 5 steps that you can take to prepare your organisation for compliance with the new laws.