Welcome to Smart Counsel®

Answers to the most frequently asked legal questions by in-house counsel.

Tapping into the firm’s market-leading expertise, Smart Counsel® covers a range of topics encountered by in-house counsel in their daily practice, including assignment, privilege, dispute resolution and contract law.

It also provides access to resources such as an execution block generator, which guides users to select an appropriate execution block for their deed or agreement, and a suite of common boilerplate clauses for contracts, each accompanied by a short, practical guide written by our experts.

ACCC Dawn Raids

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) may obtain a search warrant authorising it to enter specified premises and seize documents and things.

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Assignment and Novation

The two main legal tools for the transfer of the rights and/or obligations under a contract to another party are: assignment, for the transfer of benefits, and novation for the transfer of rights/benefits and obligations.

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Australian Consumer Law

The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) prohibits certain business practices and creates various enforceable rights for consumers.

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Boilerplate Clauses

A party must not assign or novate this [deed/agreement] or otherwise deal with the benefit of it or a right under it, or purport to do so, without the prior written consent of each other party.

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Confidentiality

Confidentiality agreements (or non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)) are frequently entered into to protect confidentiality of information disclosed during negotiations for all kinds of transactions such as for the sale of a business.

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Contract Law

Commercial contracts often contain obligations for which the standard of performance is not absolute but instead requires one party to use its ‘reasonable endeavours’ or ‘best endeavours’ to attempt to achieve the desired outcome.

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Data

'Data’ can be broadly defined as any information that has been reduced to characters, words, numbers, images, sound or video.

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Dispute Resolution

An enforceable dispute resolution clause states commitment/agreement of the parties to the contract to submit to a process by which disputes between parties to a contract will be resolved.

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Execution of Documents

The legal rules that apply to the execution of documents (and that ultimately determine whether an executed document is legally enforceable) depend on...

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Interlocutory Injunctions

An injunction is relief in the form of a court order that someone must do, not do or stop doing something.

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Merger Control in Australia

In Australia, section 50 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA) prohibits the acquisition of shares or assets that would have the effect, or likely effect, of substantially lessening competition in a market.

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Privacy

The principal statute regulating the collection, use, storage and disclosure of ‘personal information’ is the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and in particular the 13 Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) that form part of that Act.

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Privilege

Privilege protects the disclosure of certain communications and documents that would otherwise need to be disclosed.

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Subpoenas

The forms of subpoena to produce used in most courts now contain extensive notes that explain how to comply with the subpoena.

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