Under the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 (Act) the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) is empowered to make a variety of decisions including, but not limited to: [Read more…]
Litigation & Disputes
Warning – Facebook trolls ordered to pay $150k damages
24 December 2020 by
In the recent unreported case of Moy v Isaac & Smith, featured in an article published by the Courier Mail on 15 November 2020, two online trolls were ordered to pay $150,000 to a wedding planner after creating a number of defamatory Facebook posts about her business. [Read more…]
Directions to rectify defective domestic building work – part 3
3 December 2020 by
Under the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 (Act) the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) is empowered to issue to a builder a notice to rectify defective domestic building work. [Read more…]
What is a registered design?
27 November 2020 by
The registration of designs in Australia are a form of intellectual property protection associated with the visual appearance of an items with commercial or industrial significance. Rights in designs are obtained by registration under the Designs Act 2003 (Cth) (Act). Once registered the owner has exclusive rights to use the design, licence its use to others or sell it. [Read more…]
The tort of passing off
27 November 2020 by
The tort of “passing off” occurs where one trader (Defendant) has wrongly represented that its goods or services are related to those of another (Plaintiff) by imitating the latter’s “get-up”, or look and feel of their product or service.[1] A passing off action is designed to provide a remedy when this situation results in damage to the Plaintiff’s business reputation. It is usually pleaded as an alternative cause of action to misleading and deceptive conduct pursuant to the Australian Consumer Law, contained inside schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth). [Read more…]
Directions to rectify defective domestic building work – part 2
24 November 2020 by
Under the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 (Act) the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) is empowered to issue to a builder a notice to rectify defective domestic building work. [Read more…]
What is defective building work?
24 November 2020 by
Under the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 (Qld) (Act) the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) is empowered to issue to a builder a notice to rectify defective domestic building work. [Read more…]
Can legal privilege be waived by using cloud based document hosting?
20 November 2020 by
It is very common nowadays for businesses to store documents online using document hosting applications such as Dropbox or Google Documents that allow multiple parties to read, open and modify documents from any location in the world. While using these cloud storage facilities is very convenient, it may pose a problem where a person wants to claim legal professional privilege over the documents they contain. [Read more…]
Subpoenas to produce documents – Federal Court
5 November 2020 by
In litigious matters, it is often the case that a third party has documents which may go towards proving (or disproving) a fact in issue in the proceedings. When this arises, the question becomes whether you can subpoena the documents, what form should the subpoena take and at what stage in the proceedings this is best done. [Read more…]
Just and equitable winding up for shareholder oppression
30 October 2020 by
In matters involving the oppression of minority shareholders by the majority the usual legal remedy is to pursue relief for oppression as contained in sections 232 and 233 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)(Act). However section 233(2) of the act also allows for an aggrieved party to seek an order winding up the company on just and equitable ground as if the order were made under section 461. Section 233(2) represents the intersection of the just and equitable winding up and shareholder oppression. [Read more…]
