Unfair Contracting Terms
Presented by: Massimo Di Maio (Partner, MV Law) and Charlene Barriga (In-house Senior Lawyer, Aspen Medical Pty Ltd)
Are you a practitioner that deals with contracts for small to medium business or advises commercial clients?
The amendments to the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA)) (ACL) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Cth) (ASIC Act) will require practitioners to re-train their skills to identify additional contractual drafting dangers and update their internal clause banks.
The Civil Litigation Committe presents a seminar which will cover the amendments and the ACL implications (not the ASIC changes). The legislation will apply to all new contracts, or contracts which are varied from November 2023, and involve a small business company (entity which has less than 100 employees or revenue less than $10M in annual turnover). Practitioners will be required to ensure their internal use standard documents with their own suppliers are fair, but will also need to provide urgent advice to their wider commercial clients to ensure clients are not using or attempting to reply on unfair contracting terms against ‘small businesses’. Noting penalty provisions exceed $50M, this is not an area any legal practitioner can afford to miss. Noting the legislation does not provide examples of what contract provisions are ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’, we will also look to provide discussion opportunities of borderline fair provisions which may be considered to be in breach of the new regime, and alternate sample wordings.
Details
- When: 1:00pm - 2:00pm, Wednesday 4 October 2023
- Where: MV Law, EY Building, Level 2/121 Marcus Clarke St, Canberra
- Members will earn 1 CPD point in Core Area 4
- A light lunch will be provided
- RSVP by Tuesday 3 October 2023
- Cost (inc. GST): $88
Registration
| Member ticket (in person) | $88.00(GST incl.) | Register |
| Non-member ticket (in person) | $115.00(GST incl.) | Register |
| Member ticket (online) | $88.00(GST incl.) | Register |
| Non-member ticket (online) | $115.00(GST incl.) | Register |
| CLC/Students Ticket (in person) | $25.00(GST incl.) | Register |
Schedule
Speakers
Massimo Di Maio
Massimo Di Maio is a Partner in the Corporate and Commercial practice at MV Law. Massimo’s commercial law experience spans large-scale business transactions (including a share sale worth $120m and an acquisition of 35 franchised businesses valued over $40m), contract law (including advising on compliance with the Unfair Contract Terms regime in a broad range of industries), governance, intellectual property protection, corporate structuring, dispute resolution, and licensing arrangements across both the private and not-for-profit sectors (including schools and sporting clubs). Massimo is known for providing commercial, practical and culturally sensitive advice. Massimo holds both Australian and Italian law degrees.
Charlene (Charlie) Barriga
Charlene (Charlie) Barriga has been practicing over 10 years and is currently a senior in-house lawyer with Aspen Medical. Prior working in-house, Charlie worked at Moray and Agnew, and Snedden Hall and Gallop Lawyers. Charlie works across various legal in-house functions including IR, leasing, regulatory compliance, data compliance, general litigation, and contract review/drafting/negotiation/disputes. While working at Aspen for the last 2 years, she has reviewed over 500 contracts for projects in domestic and international jurisdictions, including government, oil/gas/mining, healthcare, IT and recruitment services. She has previously presented on this topic and remains committed to promoting commercially balanced agreements and avoiding unnecessary contractual disputes. Charlie is a current member of the ACT Law Society Civil Litigation Committee, Company Secretary for an indigenous led healthcare program delivering services to remote and rural NT communities, recipient of the 2023 Aspen Employee CEO Award for Pursuit of Excellence, and was the Lawyers Weekly 2023 winner of Healthcare Legal team category, and holds a Masters in legal practice from the ANU.
