According to workplace lawyers, employers are facing a
growing wave of claims that lack merit, at a time when the use of
new and emerging technologies is growing. What can, or should, be
done?
Editor's note: This story first appeared on HR
Leader's sister brand, Lawyers Weekly.
The landscape
General protections laws have remained largely unchanged in the
last decade and a half, with costs protections and the 'reverse
onus' "long being aspects of the system", Jewell
Hancock principal Andrew Jewell said.
The Fair Work Act's default position is that
parties to proceedings must bear their own costs, save for
proceedings brought vexatiously or without reasonable cause. As
recently reported by Lawyers Weekly, the Fair Work Commission's
newly released annual report notes that the workplace regulator
received 44,075 lodgments in 2024-25, making a 10 per cent increase on the number from the
previous corresponding year.
