In this Quick Tips session, we'll talk about how to make the unfair contracts legislation work for you if you were a small business. There’s lots of contracts out there that may cause significant imbalance in the rights and obligations of one party versus the other. These types of clauses might be considered to be unfair under this new law.
Welcome to the very first episode in our Quick Tips series. In this episode, we talk about the risks with profit share and revenue share deals and how we can deal with them contractually.
If you're thinking of dealing with a Heads of Agreement document, be aware of the risks that relate to the element of enforceability.
– Joanna Oakey
“When it comes to the enforcement situation when you're wanting to use your trade mark rights, having the registered trade mark when you're dealing with a mark that might be considered to be descriptive can make all the difference.” – Grace Yi
“Organisations have contractors. They should critically assess whether or not these contractors are true contractors or whether they're really employees who are simply being classified or categorised as contractors.” – Elizabeth Lee
Is your marketing strategy within the legal bounds? Here are five tips you need to keep in mind to keep you out of the legal traps in marketing.
The issue of terminating employees can be a really difficult area for employers to navigate. And it's an issue that comes up time and time again with our clients. To give this subject the proper treatment that it deserves, we have on board Jayne Qorraj, who heads up the Employment and Litigation division at Aspect Legal.
We're all about trying to save our clients and our listeners on this show from some of the issues that we have seen in the past. To do just that, we've invited our very own trade marks expert at Aspect Legal, Grace Yi, to talk about the common mistakes that people make in this area.
If you're a small business or if you deal with small businesses as contractors or as suppliers, you should really be thinking about how this new legislation might apply in your business situations and what the legislation means for you and your organisation in the approach that you're taking to your contracts.
Defamation is an area of law that involves a publication in any form whatsoever about someone that might be considered to cause harm to someone else. A lot of people think it only has to be something that's actually written down or something that's spoken. But that's not the case at all.
In this episode, we answer a listener question about putting together contracts for offshore workers and the sorts of agreements that need to be in there. These agreements are particularly important because offshore staff are as much a part of your team as staff you sit with in the office.
Many business owners need to consider entering into property leases at some point in running their business. But because of the long-term nature and the obligations that come with this contract category, leases should be examined closely and, more importantly, understood completely before you even consider signing one. In this week's episode, we've invited our very own expert on commercial leases, Elizabeth Lee, to share her wealth of experience in this area of law.
We take a look at a recent case by Google against one of its former employees that throws up some very interesting issues for businesses of all sizes. In this episode, we'll also cover the most common issues caused by exiting staff members and the simple steps an organisation can put in place to protect itself from some of these high cost issues.
We invited Greg Will of Armstrong Dawson to share his expertise in the area of research and development grants. In less than 20 minutes, find out when you may claim R&D grants, what sorts of expenditures it may apply to, what sorts of things to avoid, and many more!
A new legal opinion in Australia warned that directors who don't properly consider climate related risks could be found liable for breaching their duty of care and diligence. This reminds us of how important it is for directors to be acutely aware of how far their director's duties can potentially extend.
Email technology has changed the face and pace of business today. As the primary medium for how we communicate, we find our inboxes swamped with more and more emails. This exponentially increasing volume of business documentation makes email management a real legal nightmare!
In the last episode, I talked about issues caused by a lack of sufficient detail in contracts or even worse, a failure to have a finalised contract before performance starts (which happens more often than you might think). Today, we're going to discuss how you can streamline your contracting process with some actionable tips and suggestions.
Whilst you might have the strongest relationships in place now, tomorrow a business might be sold, there might be new management, we might have a new GFC. Whilst a contract won’t prevent all problems from ever arising, it will at least put you in a much more powerful position to demand compliance with an agreement by another party.
The fashion world was taken by surprise a few weeks ago when major retailer, Rhodes and Beckett and their sister chain Herringbone closed their doors. Tune in to this week's episode as we take a look at the lessons to be learnt from the collapse of this upmarket label and share some tips on how you can apply these to your business, regardless of whether your industry is construction or couture.
Indemnity clauses often carry an enormous amount of risk, that often can far exceed the value of a contract. So in this episode we explore the main risks in indemnity clauses that you might be signing, and on the flip side, the way to use indemnity clauses best to provide protections.
The new year is a perfect time to tackle the legal loose ends in a business in order to start the year with a clean slate and a fresh start! In this episode, we run through the top 7 areas of focus in getting legals in any organisation ship shape for the year to come.
It's really important for anyone who deals with contracts to understand everything that's in the contracts. Once you understand these areas it becomes easier for you to pick up any issues that might be relevant to your situation or how the contract applies to you or your business. So today what we're going to do is run through some common boilerplate terms and explain what they mean.
Intellectual property is property of the mind as distinct from real property like for example a table. If a table is stolen, we'll know because the table isn't there anymore.
We want to talk today about all of the things that you can do differently. The small things that you can put in place in your business to try and set it up into the position that you’re able to avoid the risk of unfair dismissal claims or at least reduce the risk as much as possible.
In this episode we share some helpful tips and insights on the ins and outs of MoUs. Memorandums of Understanding (often shortened to the acronym MoU) are documents that are widely used in commercial settings - so today we delve into what they are, what they should contain and the sorts of risks that you should be aware of in using them.
Today we are talking about the frequently asked questions that we receive in relation to trade marks so we can tackle some of the issues that we hear time and time again. I’ve got a whole heap of questions here. I'll run through them one by one.
In this episode we are talking about the top things you should be looking out for in contracts that come across your desk, and the risks of glossing over the detail.
Trademark registrations are one of the easiest and cheapest ways to protect a business. Today we delve into the basics of this area of trademarks:
One common legal issue businesses face are problems that crop up from time to time with clients. This can lead to clients paying slowly, or not at all, costly and time consuming disputes, and brand damage. In this episode we discuss how having the right approach from the start can help you to avoid most of these problems.
A New Legislation commenced on November 12, 2016. If you are a business owner, listen in to understand how this impacts your business.
Careful planning and choosing the right structure for your business makes a lot of difference. So in this episode, we'll help you understand the different structures, the pros and cons, and what action steps you can do today.
In our very first episode of Talking Law, we discuss why being on top of legal issues is so important, and we do a quick run through of the top 6 legal considerations for a business.