5 crucial legal considerations to protect your Australian business

When you were getting your business started, or if you have a business already, did you have trouble wrapping your head around the legal requirements to ensure your business is protected from potential legal claims? Or were you not sure about the crucial insurances or legal agreements your business needed?

From our experience, a high number of Australian businesses don't have the basic agreements, documents and insurances in place to run their business and, as they grow, they often end up rendering massive legal fees and business issues that could have been easily been avoided.

Example case study (true story)

Some businesses are completely unaware that contractors can be considered employees if the relationship is not clearly defined and managed correctly.

One of our clients (before they worked with Legal Kitz and Business Kitz) started a real estate business and hired a contractor. On the contractor's very first day of work, the contractor fell over and successfully claimed $60,000 + for their medical bills and out of pocket expenses because:

1. The business owner didn't make a valid assessment of the contractor and the contractor was deemed an 'employee' through legal proceedings;

2. The business owner didn’t define the relationship well enough through putting a contractor or services agreement in place; and

3. The business owner didn’t have Workcover insurance in place (as a protective measure) and wasn't aware that there was a risk that a contractor could claim all of their medical and out of pocket expenses if the contractor (who was considered an employee for Workcover's purposes) had an accident whilst at 'work'.

Our client unfortunately had to pay the contractor $60,000 + by remortgaging their home and winding up their business all due to the fact that the business owner was unaware of the above factors.

Legal Kitz and Business Kitz are passionate about educating start-ups about the crucial legal considerations they need to know to protect their Australian businesses and prevent easily avoidable pitfalls.

This session will be presented by Sarina Eggers-Stable (Principal of Legal Kitz and Founder of Business Kitz) and Tanya Bali (Senior Paralegal of Legal Kitz)

Sarina Eggers-Stable

Sarina Eggers-Stable is a qualified solicitor admitted with the High Court of Australia and Supreme Court of Queensland. Sarina is a Director of leading Australian business Business Kitz, Partner of Legal Kitz and Director of Lux Whitsundays, a luxury sailing business based in the Whitsundays, Queensland. In 2018, Sarina was appointed as an Advisory Board Member for Flexi Flow, an educational training provider for schools and government departments.

Sarina is known for her in-depth commercial and employment, intellectual property and technology legal experience and knowledge. Sarina previously worked as a solicitor for Australia’s largest top-tier law firms across the corporate and commercial/intellectual property, mining, technology and employment teams, gaining experience in high-end national and international transactions and acting for Australia’s largest listed companies.

Sarina has also previously held a senior role with Griffith University, one Australia’s largest universities where she was responsible for negotiating the university’s commercial contracts and arrangements and assisting with the management and commercialisation of the university’s intellectual property.

Sarina offers excellent business acumen. One of Sarina’s notable achievements was Sarina’s role in the successful commercialisation of a multi-faceted human resource company’s intellectual property assets by the age of 21. Sarina was awarded a ‘Bond University Dean Academic Scholarship’ to study a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of International Relations at Bond University. Bond University Dean Academic Scholarships are awarded on the basis of ‘outstanding academic results and other achievements’. Sarina graduated with a Bachelor of Laws over 10 years’ ago, at the age of 20.

Sarina has been engaged in various community organisations and was appointed as the Executive Officer for the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Committee from 2011 – 2016. Sarina has been recognised as ‘Australia Day’s Youth Citizen of the Year’ and also received an ‘Order of Australia Association Community Service Award’.

Sarina is highly regarded by her peers for her strong work ethic, trusted advice, commercial acumen and ability to develop and maintain positive working relationships.

Tanya Bali

Tanya Bali had over 7 years’ work experience before joining Legal Kitz and has quickly progressed to a Senior Paralegal and now leads a team of 4 paralegals. Tanya has recently returned from a 2-month secondment at one of the firms’ public mining services clients where she assisted the company, in-house, with their workplace, human resource and commercial matters. Previously, Tanya worked for an international copyright company whose offices are based in Hong Kong and London.

Tanya is a final year law student with considerable experience in corporate and commercial and workplace matters. Tanya has also won a number of negotiation and client related competitions, including the Ashurst Junior Negotiation Competition and the College of Law Client Interview Competition.

Tanya is the Director and owner of Brisbane Fashion Runway, a well-regarded annual luxury fashion event that supports Australia’s emerging designers and a variety of local businesses that attracts major sponsors such as major sponsors such as Brisbane City Landrover, Infinity Cars, Moet Chandon, QUT Creative Enterprise and Tryp Hotel.

Tanya’s experience and leadership skills are also strengthened from a number of her extracurricular activities. In 2015, Tanya was crowned Miss India Australia where she went on to represent both Australia and India on an international platform and learnt excellent diplomacy and teamwork skills.