This presentation will focus on the legal and practical issues which legal advisors and their clients should consider when addressing the topic of business succession planning for private businesses. In particular, this session will cover the following key topics:

• The value of an effective and well drafted buy/sell agreement for multi-owner businesses.
• Key terms of a buy/sell agreement.
• Funding issues and structuring insurance arrangements.
• Issues with superannuation policy ownership.
• Tax implications arising from buy/sell arrangements.
• Other stakeholder agreements (such as shareholder agreements, partnership agreements and unitholder agreements).
• Employment / management succession plans.
• Intergenerational family succession planning.

At the most basic level, an employment relationship is a contractual relationship between an employee, who promises to perform duties for an employer, and an employer, who agrees to remunerate the employee for that service.  An employment contract may be verbal or in writing, and when in writing it can be constituted by one document or a series of communications.  It is best practice to have a comprehensive, written contract of employment in place for all employees, but unfortunately not all employment contracts are created equal.

In this presentation, we will cover:

• what should be included in a written contract in relation to an employee's duties, types of employment, hours of work and location;
• how an employee's remuneration and other financial and non-financial benefits should be dealt with in the contract;
• why it is important to include effective confidentiality restrictions and intellectual property protections;
• how to deal with the termination of the employment relationship and related issues;
• how to prepare and draft effective post-termination restrictions; and;
• how an employment contract interrelates with relevant modern awards, enterprise agreements, the National Employment Standards, and company policies and procedures.

Disclosure and obligations of good faith - Some recent cases concerning breaches of the Franchising Code of Conduct prosecuted by the ACCC and what we have learnt concerning obligations of good faith and disclosure.

Civil Penalty Provisions - Powers of the Court to impose civil penalties on directors or officers that do not act in accordance with the Franchising Code of Conduct.

Advising franchisees/franchisors.

Issues concerning the exercise of options to extend the franchise agreement.

Issues concerning the restraints contained in a franchise agreement and how that may be impacted by Section 23 of the Franchising Code of Conduct.

Matters concerning territorial breaches and parties’ obligations to observe a territory that forms part of the franchise agreement.

Dealing with operational breaches of a franchise.

Occupancy of premises by a franchisee and their inclusion in the franchise agreement.

At the heart of large construction and engineering projects are the risk allocation arrangements. As part of that, principals usually require contractors to provide performance bonds/guarantees. There was a growing trend in the case law that these performance bonds were prima facie to be regarded as risk allocation devices such that when a dispute broke out, the party providing the bond was the one to be out of pocket until the dispute was resolved. 

This constituted an obstacle to those who provided these bonds in obtaining interim injunctions restraining calls on them. Eye watering amounts are involved in these types of cases with bonds often denominated in the scores of millions of dollars so the approach to construction has serious real world impact. However, the NSW Court of Appeal may have signalled a step back from that position in Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd v Laing O’Rourke Australia Construction Pty Ltd [2017] NSWCA 291; (2017) 96 NSWLR 329, namely that the correct way to approach the true construction of clauses providing for such bonds is on general principles relating to the construction of commercial contracts. 

This is an approach that now appears to have been taken up by at least one other intermediate appellate court, namely JKC Australia Lng Pty Ltd v CH2M Hill Companies Ltd [No 2] [2020] WASCA 112. Kawasaki also considered the impact of an arbitration clause on what interim relief (if any) a court ought provide. This presentation will take a brief look at where we have come from in this regard, where we are now and what the future trend in this area is likely to be.

Charles Colquhoun, Barrister, Tenth Floor Chambers

Bradley Smith, Barrister, Tenth Floor Chambers

1. Introduction – why is it important to know about frustration and force majeure?
2. Force majeure
3. Doctrine of Frustration