• Providing advice on business structures for start up businesses or growing businesses with specific needs such as asset protection, obtaining the benefit of concessions available for sale of businesses. We can assist you in deciding whether to conduct your business as a sole trader, partnership, proprietary limited company, joint venture or trust;
• Reviewing or drafting commercial agreements including supply agreements for products and services, franchise agreements and licence agreements;
• Reviewing and drafting finance documents such as commercial loans, leases, factoring, revolving lines of credit and supplier credit terms;
• Reviewing and drafting contracts of employment and independent contractors agreement;
• providing advice and acting in relation to claims for breach of employment contracts, termination of employment, anti-discrimination matters, interpretation of federal and state legislation and awards and other employment related issues;
• Liquor licensing applications and advice on liquor and gaming licences
• trade practices advice and acting in relation to claims and actions brought by regulatory bodies, consumers or other businesses;
• Review and negotiation of contracts (including negotiations with Telstra Corporation Limited, particularly, negotiations relating to supply agreements for high-level goods and services);
• Trade Practices Act advice (this is the name of the legislation dealing with anti-competitive conduct, misleading and deceptive conduct, consumer claims etc);
• Commercial leases;
• Intellectual property issues including copyright and trademarks;
• Contracts with carriers and warehouse operators;
• Contracts of insurance;
• Share buybacks and changes to corporate organisation;
• Sales of business and transfers of assets and shares;
• Compliance with corporations, environmental and other relevant legislation;
• Administrative applications for relief from reporting obligations under the Corporations Act including Federal court reviews of administrative decisions;
• Debt recovery; and
• Commercial litigation (including assisting when my clients documents and/or officers are subpoenaed or otherwise compelled to provide evidence in third party commercial litigation).
Our aim is to provide practical and timely advice and services in these areas to assist our customers’’ businesses grow.
We supply these services to small, medium and large businesses, particularly, to local subsidiaries of multi-national companies. These companies might be large scale globally but have a more limited presence in Australia.
We act as “in-house” counsel for such corporations and have been involved in the establishment of the local entities for these multi-national groups and assisting them in their day to day operation and the negotiation of key contracts for the local business operations. We regularly liaise with and assist in-house lawyers in the parent company of local subsidiaries.
The reason that we have been able to retain a large amount of work from foreign subsidiaries is that we are very pro-active, readily available and our turnaround time is superior to the large law firms with whom we compete. We are used to being available for telephone conferences and other work outside usual office hours.
Our current clients have offices in Paris, New Zealand and the United States. However, the senior managers of these corporations are frequently travelling in various locations around the world and we are able to make ourselves available to assist at these times.
