Welcome to HWL Ebsworth’s Commercial e-Newsletter for Queensland.
We trust that you will find the information in this edition useful, timely and practical. HWL Ebsworth’s Commercial group offers a diverse range of expertise including in Mergers & Acquisitions, Capital Markets, Corporate Governance, Commercial Contracting, Taxation, Energy & Resources, Intellectual Property, Information & Technology and Franchising, with a paramount focus on producing commercially optimal outcomes for our clients. Please forward this e-Newsletter to anyone who you believe may be interested in these articles.
In this edition we review the following topics:
‘Stepping stone’ liability of company directors
A company director who unreasonably exposes the company to sanctions, civil liability or reputational damage in allowing the company to contravene the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Corporations Act) or some other relevant law may be found to have breached their duties to the company, potentially giving rise to both civil penalties and disqualification as a director.
To read more, click here.
Updates to the ASIC deed of cross guarantee (the Ancillary Documents)
In October 2017, ASIC repealed ASIC Class Order 98/1418 (Class Order 98/1418), which provided financial reporting relief for wholly-owned companies within a group where the members of the group are party to a deed of cross guarantee in the form of ASIC Pro Forma 24. The Class Order has been replaced by ASIC Corporations (Wholly-owned Companies) Instrument 2016/785 (Instrument) (which applies to financial years ending on or after 1 January 2017).
To read more, click here.
Monkeys and artificial intelligence: What’s the connection?
The question of non-human authors in copyright has been deliberated by many.
Most recently, a United States Court has considered whether copyright vests in a macaque monkey called Naruto who took the infamous “Monkey Selfie” on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
To read more, click here.
Significant changes to state taxes
All of the State and Territory Governments have recently handed down their budgets for the 2017/18 year. Most governments have announced significant changes to State Taxes.
To read more, click here.
Introducing Kay Lam-Macleod to Commercial team
Our Brisbane Communications, Media and Technology team are delighted to welcome Kay Lam-Macleod as a Special Counsel.
Kay is an IT law specialist. She is experienced in providing advice and assistance with:
- Negotiating and drafting technology-centric contracts, and advising on intellectual property matters;
- Drafting terms of trade for service providers across a wide range of IT service including software, mobile app and game developers, web designers, managed services, hosted services, infrastructure providers (telephony, connectivity, data centres), digital agencies (SEO, social media management and online marketing services), copywriters, graphic designers and photographers, penetration testers and general consulting;
- Drafting various contracts including agile, waterfall or hybrid software development, use of open source or third party plugins or modules, congruence with agreements with upstream service providers or subcontractors, compatibility with third party software or equipment;
- Intellectual Property ownership. Assignment, commercialisation recordal (registrations);
- Implementation, ongoing support, warranties and maintenance, scope creep, variations and new feature requests, testing and acceptance procedures and termination, source code release and transition out requirements; and
- Drafting website terms and conditions and privacy policies across a range of business models which include subscription or registered membership granting access to information or resource, Sale of goods (physical and digital), XaaS, online bookings, matching customers to resources or other people, general discussion forums and information aggregators.
Kay holds qualifications in law, business and IT, and was the principal of a boutique IT law firm acting for private sector technology companies for many years. Her hands-on experience in this area enables her to provide practical and commercial legal advice.