Today, the ACCC issued a media release about designated complaints legislation that has been introduced into Parliament. Under the proposed legislation, certain consumer and business advocacy groups will be approved by the relevant minister to make designated complaints to the ACCC. Amongst other things, the complaints must be significant or a systematic market issue that affects consumers or small businesses in Australia relating to a breach of the Competition and Consumer Act. The AC...

We have found that it is becoming more common for a purchaser of a business to require vendor finance. There are obviously risks associated with lending money on the purchase of a business, but certain steps can be taken to help protect the position of the vendor/lender: 1.      registration as Purchase Money Security Interest on the PPSR; 2.      personal guarantees; 3.      registration of security interest over a...

Over the past 20 years, there has been a real move away from granting exclusive territories. Franchisors used to grant exclusive territories. However, they found themselves in difficult circumstances if the population of the territory grew a lot or otherwise the territory was too big for a franchisee to properly service and the franchisor did not have the right to change the size of the territory. That resulted in exclusive marketing territories becoming more popular. In these cases, franch...