The Supreme Court, per Randall AsJ  set aside a statutory demand in Stellar Projects (Vic) Pty Ltd v Cambridge Plumbing Pty Ltd [2017] VSC 532.  This was a case where the court had to consider conflicting authorities regarding a prematurely sworn affidavit. It ended up being a very bad at the office for the defendant whose statutory demand was set aside.

FACTS

The statutory demand dated 14 July 2017 claimed the sum of Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes  the scale of data breaches reach such a point that it numbs the reader. Yahoo’s breach affected one billion accounts in 2013 and 145 million eBay accounts were affected in 2014. That the figures defy easy comprehension doesn’t Read the rest of this entry »

The Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement between it, 32 State Attorneys General and Lenovo relating to a complaint that it harmed consumers privacy and compromised data security with preloaded man in the middle software onto some of its laptops.  The software, described as VisualDiscovery, delivered ads to the lap top owners but in doing so compromised security protections.

This is a huge settlement which deals with Read the rest of this entry »

In 2012 a paparazzi used a zoom lens to take photographs of a relaxing, topless, Duchess of Cambridge while she was sunbathing on a terrace inside a private property during a holiday in France.  The resulting photographs were hawked around the various publications.  British papers turned down the offer but the French magazine Closer did not. It published the shots and the Duchess, with her husband, filed a criminal complaint for invasion of privacy and successfully obtained an injunction against the further use of the photographs. The Duchess also commenced civil action alleging an invasion of privacy.

Overnight the Duchess of Cambridge was successful with a French court ordering  Closer to pay €100,000 and Read the rest of this entry »

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has again taken action for breaches of data security. This time it issued a monetary penalty notice, of £70,000, against the Nottinghamshire Council for exposing the personal information of vulnerable people for 5 years.  While the legislative structures are different the assertive approach by the ICO compares favourably to the lethargic and timid approach taken by the Australian Privacy Commissioner.

The nub of the problem was that Nottinghamshire County Council had set up a portal to allow social care providers to confirm that they had capacity to support a vulnerable person.  The architecture of the portal was flawed.  A member of the public discovered Read the rest of this entry »

The Supreme Court, per Gardiner AsJ, dismissed an application to set aside a statutory demand in Soper Industries Pty Ltd v Toll Transport Pty Ltd [2017] VSC 524.

FACTS

Soper Industries Pty Ltd (‘Soper Industries’), applied under s 459G of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (‘the Act’) to set aside a statutory demand served on it by Toll Transport Pty Ltd (‘Toll’), on 15 March 2017 [1].

Under the demand Read the rest of this entry »

Payment by card is becoming ubiquitous in Australia, right down to getting the mandatory coffee first thing in the morning.  Some businesses refuse to accept cash where cash was usually the only form of transaction, such as bakeries.  The Economist in Emptying the tills highlights the phenomena of card taps being the norm, cash payment by value dropping, to as low as 5.7% in Sweden, and card only being a selling point.  It is not universal with card over cash being the norm in Scandinavia but cash still reigning in Germany and Italy, though for differing reasons.

What is clear though is that with the march of the cards maintaining data security is critical.  The best starting point is to comply with industry standards on data security, otherwise known as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Unfortunately, as with many businesses, maintaining appropriate data security is less common that one would hope.  That is made clear in a very recent Verizon 2017 Payment Security Report.   It finds that 44.6% fail to protect to payment card data on Read the rest of this entry »

Hard situations make bad laws.  That legal maxim, that an extreme case makes bad law, should be scratched onto the screen of every policy maker in every government.  It usually ends in tears.

The terrible and tragic case of William Tyrrell has been covered extensively in the media since he disappeared from care.  That coverage, or at least the extent of it, found its way into the New South Wales Court of Appeal in  Secretary, Department of Family and Community Services v Smith [2017] NSWCA 206.  In that case the Court rejected the Departments appeal from Read the rest of this entry »

The Federal Court (Bankruptcy) Amendment (Insolvency and Other Measures) Rules 2017  comes  into effect on 1 September 2017.  That will Read the rest of this entry »

There are no shortage of cyber strategies being announced and even re announced by governments and agencies and sometimes governments and agencies together .

The The Victorian Government has announced its first Cyber Security Strategy.  It is the first Australian state to do so. The 32 page strategy is found here.

The announcement Read the rest of this entry »