Recent case confirms the paramount importance of the PPSA registration to protect personal property.

The Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (“the PPSA”) came into effect on 30 January 2012. As its name suggests, the PPSA governs the way in which securities over personal property are construed in the eyes of the law. The key change introduced by the PPSA is that it essentially removes the concept of ownership in private property and instead makes the registration on the PPS Register the main factor in deciding who is entitled to personal property in the event of competing interests.

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The full text of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) is set out in Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, which is the new name of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA). The ACL is a single, national law concerning consumer protection and fair trading, which applies in the same way nationally and in each State and Territory and replaces a wide range of existing State and Territory consumer laws. Under the ACL, consumers have the same protections and expectations about business conduct wherever they are in Australia. Similarly, businesses have the same obligations and responsibilities wherever they operate in Australia.

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In a recent case of Agripower Australia Ltd v J&D Rigging Pty Ltd, the Supreme Court of Queensland has substantially limited the ability of mining services companies to claim under the Building and Construction Industry Payment Act (BCIPA) in Queensland. The following are the key points arising from this case:

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The case highlights challenges for in-house lawyers in considering the true effect of preliminary agreements (heads of agreements, memoranda of understanding etc), especially in the context of compliance with continuous disclosure obligations of listed companies.

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Stanislav Roth, founder and managing director of Source Legal presented on preliminary agreements at the recent Tonkin’s tender management roadshow in Sydney and Melbourne.

The presentation is attached as a PowerPoint presentation, which you can download on the next page…

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Source Legal and Coverforce entered into an exclusive co-operation agreement with an aim to provide more comprehensive contract review services to Coverforce’s clients and create opportunities to promote each other’s services to their respective clients. Coverforce is one of Australia’s largest and most capable insurance brokers, offering all classes of insurance to business, professions and industry groups.

According to the recently published survey of legal departments conducted by the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association and its counterpart in New Zealand a whooping 4% of inhouse lawyers consider hourly billing to be the best approach of pricing legal services. This is hardly surprising – hourly billing has been actively disliked by clients and (most) lawyers for a long time. A more interesting statistic is that more than 50% of in-house lawyers do not believe they were being offered a viable alternative.

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On 2 October 2012, the High Court ended a long battle between ASIC and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (“Fortescue”) and its founder and chairman Andrew Forrest. Fortescue and Forrest emerged victorious but, no doubt, bruised as a result of the seven-year stoush with ASIC.

The case goes back to 2004 and 2005 when Fortescue, which was not yet a “third force” in iron ore, triumphantly announced to the market (via the ASX) that it entered into “binding agreements” with Chinese stateowned enterprises to build the railway, port and mine for its iron ore project in Pilbara. Naturally, the announcements had an immediate positive impact on Fortescue’s share price.

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Concise overview of fixed-free pricing delivered by Source Legal as part of a Legal Fees panel at the Thomson Reuters Business of Law Masterclasses in Sydney & Melbourne. Skip to page 5 for our 5 Golden Rules for Fixed Fee Pricing.

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Interview with Source Legal founder Stanislav Roth about the increasing demand for pricing that reflects value, rather than being tied to hourly rates.

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