On January 28, 2015 the High Court ruled that the detention of asylum seekers at sea in what is known as the "contiguous zone" is authorised by the Maritime Powers Act 2013.  157 passengers were on board an Indian flagged vessel.  One of them claimed false imprisonment.  The High Court rejected this.  The vessel had been intercepted by an Australian border protection ship in the Indian Ocean within Australia's contiguous zone.  The vessel was detained, and once it became unseaworthy the passengers were transferred to the Australian vessel. 

In the recent general protections’ case of Heriot v Sayfa Systems Pty Limited [2014] FCCA 1622, an employee’s dismissal by way of a mutual termination was held to be adverse action against the employee.

Welcome to the first edition of the Holman Webb Workplace Relations Bulletin December 2014.

Cloud storage and the protection of personal information is a vexed and difficult issue to deal with.  Under the Australian Privacy legislation a local entity that provides personal information to a storage facility outside Australia may be exposed to liability that arises if the external storage provider breaches the Australian Privacy Principles.

In Byrne v People Resourcing (Qld) Pty Ltd & Anor [2014] QSC (Byrne), Carmody CJ held that WorkCover Queensland (WorkCover) was required to indemnify the plaintiff’s employer, People Resourcing (Qld) Pty Ltd (PRQ) a labour hire company in relation to a contractual indemnity that PRQ had provided to one of its clients/host employers, Thiess John Holland (TJH).

Five Things to Know About Electronic Communications:

• "Click Wrap" agreements;
• When is an email received;
• 'Meeting of the minds';
• Input errors; and
• Electronic signatures

Click here to read the latest cases in Health Law -  The High Court has recently decided that a hospital is not liable for violent acts of a discharged mental health patient.   In addition, another case explains why hospitals should keep health care records relevant to a particular patient.

Without much fanfare last week Australia’s new, but long awaited, Franchising Code of Conduct was published. Since it is to take effect on 1 January 2015, Australian franchise systems need to work fast to make sure that their documents and processes are in order before the new year. 

On 23 October 2014 the Federal Court of Australia handed down a decision that dealt with the downloading of software by an employee immediately before his departure from that firm and his taking up employment with a competitor.

Despite the court’s finding that the employee received no material benefit from use of the information, and his new employer had no access to the information, significant monetary compensation was payable by the employee.  The facts are as follows.

Holman Webb acted for CGU Insurance Limited in what is considered to be the first successful subrogated recovery action against a water authority.  The case involved damage caused to an insured’s property when a water main substantially failed and the property became inundated with water. In the decision of Peter and Cheryle Quigley v Lower Murray Water (W119/2013) the VCAT considered for the first time a water authority’s defence of running an asset to failure and its defence of non-foreseeability.