The Commission’s report on its review of the Act was submitted to the Attorney-General on 14 May 2007.

If a whistleblower's conduct involves misconduct and/or continued unfounded allegations of the theft, illegal act or wrongdoing, termination may be justifiable.

The Mineral Resources and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 will provide the winner of the Aurukun Project with expedited procedures and relaxed restrictions in obtaining the requisite licences and permits.

A greenhouse trigger would mean projects which generated levels of greenhouse gas emissions over a threshold would be referred to the Commonwealth Environment Minister for determination as to whether it is a "controlled action" which would then require the approval of the Minister for the project to be obtained.

The latest piece of the Federal Government's response to the credit crunch has been released: a regulation establishing the $1 million threshold limit on the Government Guarantee, and the declaration of a list of covered financial products that will comprise protected accounts for the purposes of the Government Guarantee.

The exposure draft of the Personal Property Securities Bill 2008 (PPS Bill) was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs this week.

The Australian Law Reform Commission is promoting a new statutory framework, proposing a form of inquiry to run parallel to Royal Commissions, with similar advantages and outcomes to Royal Commissions, but offering greater flexibility and less formality.

The Canadian Supreme Court rejected an exclusion clause that sought to exclude liability for all claims by unsuccessful bidders "for compensation of any kind whatsoever, as a result of participating in this RFP".

The Agreement Establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area was signed on 27 February 2009 in Hua Hin, Thailand. The ten ASEAN members are Burma, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It is the most comprehensive free trade agreement that ASEAN has negotiated.

The Full Federal Court has unanimously held that car parking provided by Virgin Blue Airlines (VBA) to its employees was not "in the vicinity of" their primary place of employment and was therefore exempt from fringe benefits tax (FBT) (Virgin Blue Airlines Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation [2010] FCAFC 137).

Ensuring the document that took many months to negotiate or is worth many millions of dollars has legal effect.

Often in litigation opposing parties attempt to get access to correspondence between experts and their instructing lawyers and the experts’ draft reports in an attempt to find material useful for cross-examination.

Claims that packaging is environmentally friendly are becoming more common, but as Sharon Segal warns they can breach the Trade Practices Act if not done carefully.

Many of you would have read our previous Alerts regarding the proposed adoption in Australia of wide ranging personal property securities reforms. As a culmination of the public consultation process that has already been implemented by the Attorney-General's Department in relation to the new regime, the exposure draft of the Personal Property Securities Bill 2008 (PPS Bill) was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on 13 November 2008.

The UK’s experience could prove useful to the Australian Government which is looking at potential areas where Public Private Partnerships could be applied.

Parties entering into commercial agreements should consider agreeing in advance the law which governs non-contractual as well as contractual obligations arising from their agreement.

A discussion on new proposals regarding increases in penalties against telecommunication providers for breaching performance benchmarks.

It is commonplace in litigation involving claims of misleading or deceptive conduct or passing off to rely on evidence obtained by way of "trap" orders or dealings. The recent decision in Nick Scali Limited v Super A-Mart Pty Limited [2010] FCA 1130 highlights that the weight given to such evidence could be diminished where the applicant fails to give timely notice of the trap dealing to the respondent.

The latest round of the ACCC's attempt to block the Metcash deal has given useful guidance for future merger disputes.

The High Court took a broad view of the factors that can be taken into account in determining whether there is a penalty.