Business Legal Advice
Mitigating risks
The requirement for sound business advice can come at any stage of a business. Whether it is business expansion, diversification, acquisition or exit planning, each has its own set of legal considerations. Equipping yourself to understand the laws surrounding your business leads to favourable results. Risk mitigation plays an important role in any business and is commonly taken care of by your solicitor. Your solicitor ensures appropriate levels of protection are in place to allow your business to function as required.
Business Structures
Understanding business needs
Choosing the appropriate business structure to use depends on many factors and should be done correctly from the beginning. Your solicitor will consider how you want to run your business, its size and the primary function. The most common structures are:
- Sole Trader
- Company
- Partnership
- Trust
The structure you choose needs to work for you, not against you. Each option has varied set up costs, tax implications and abilities to protect assets. Your solicitor will explain which structure is appropriate for your specific set of circumstances.
Business Contracts
Drafting, Negotiation and Examination
We assist businesses in the negotiation, drafting and examination of contracts between yourself, suppliers, customers and partners, mainly:
- Buying and selling of businesses (asset or a going concern)
- Franchise agreements
- Joint venture and acquisition
- Supplier and distributor agreements
- Customer and reseller agreements
- Contractor agreements
- Privacy policies
- Confidentiality and Non-disclosure Agreements
- Employment contracts
Employee Agreements
Navigating Industrial relations
We assist businesses with appropriate legal advice in taking on new employees and managing existing staff, in particular:
- Workplace health and safety responsibilities
- Fulltime, part-time and casual employee contracts
- Enterprise agreements, new and existing
- Remuneration structures
- Performance management
Australian Consumer Law
Business Compliance
We advise business on how to stay up-to-date with:
- Consumer rightsSeller responsibilities
- Warranty against defects
- Guarantees
- Advertising and marketing
Significant financial penalties exist for breaches of Australian Consumer Law and vary for individuals and organisations.
Individuals can face fines of up to $500,000.00.
For corporations, the greater of $10,000,000.00, or three times the value of the benefit, or 10% of annual tuner over in the preceding 12 months trade if the Court is unable to determine the benefit obtained.
Privacy Policy
Privacy Act 1988
Under the Privacy Act 1988, Australian businesses with annual turnover of over $3 million are required to have a privacy policy in place.
Although many businesses will have a lower turnover, many industries consider it ‘best practice’ to have a privacy policy. It allows you to understand how your business collects and stores data and identify potential risks. You gain valuable insight on internal processes while demonstrating you care about protecting sensitive data.
Please see the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner checklist .
