Doing business in Australia answers some of the most common questions an overseas investor may ask when establishing a business presence in Australia. It aims to provide an introduction to the laws of Australia for overseas legal practitioners.

The Department of Home Affairs has issued its draft guidance “Modern Slavery Act 2018: Draft Guidance for Reporting Entities” (Draft Guidance) for the new Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) (the Act). 

To ensure enforceability of a bank guarantee (or other instrument), it is important to comply strictly with any prescribed form or wording requirements for legal communications relating to that instrument.

In this insight, we summarise the new laws and take a closer look at how the reforms affect particular types of transactions. We also provide some practical tips for drafting and managing contracts affected by the new laws.

By 2031, more than 30 million will call Australia home, and with this forecasted population increase comes significant infrastructure demands. Australia’s infrastructure projects have traditionally been funded via bank or government balance sheets, but this is all set to change.

In mid-2017, Swiss Re, the world’s second largest re-insurance company, announced they had begun to integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors into their investment decision making processes. By the end of 2017, Swiss Re expects that all investment decisions impacting their entire USD130bn global portfolio will be based on ESG and related ethical factors.

Dominic Emmett and Alexandra Whitby have recently authored the Australia chapter in the International Comparative Legal Guide to: Corporate Recovery & Insolvency 2017.

The Federal Government has released its long-awaited draft legislation to amend the Corporations Act to introduce a ‘safe harbour’ carve out to a director’s personal liability for insolvent trading and a stay on the enforceability of certain ‘ipso facto’ clauses during an administration or scheme of arrangement. Our Restructuring + Insolvency Team dissects what the proposed changes mean for Australian businesses.

Gilbert + Tobin was delighted to be the legal sponsor for the AFR Banking and Wealth Summit, Australia’s premier forum for banking and wealth leaders, regulators, policymakers and stakeholder groups.
 

In the summer issue of Young Lawyers Journal, Banking + Infrastructure lawyer Daniel Yim wrote about the law of change - that is, the challenges and lessons arising from the trend for non-lawyers to perform services traditionally delivered by law firms.

In this downloadable PDF report, a number of Gilbert + Tobin experts review the regulatory aspects relating to the banking industry in Australia.