Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Legalwise Commercial Litigation Conference
Location: Webinar via Zoom
Topic: Competition Law Update: Misuse of Intellectual Property and Breach of Restraint of Trade
View the full program via the below link:

https://legalwiseseminars.com.au/seminar-details?event=14771484009

This presentation will explore the intersection between intellectual property misuse and restraints of trade (RoTs), offering practical insights into protecting business interests while navigating legal boundaries. Key topics include:

  • Protecting IP through RoTs: How confidential information, trademarks, patents, and copyrights align with enforceable restraints (General principles)
  • Reasonable Restraints: Defining acceptable time and geographic limits versus overreaching constraints. (Legislation followed by a few cases in a couple lines, what was reasonable?)
  • Drafting Resilient RoTs: Practical tips to ensure enforceability, and when courts might read them down. (Cascading/laddering restraints)
  • Impugning RoTs: Strategies to challenge unreasonable restraints in court. (Look to arguments in cases, three levels of arguments: One is that restraint is too broad geographically (hence unreasonable and cannot be read down absent any ladder/cascading), two is that the restraint is too broad temporally, three is blue pencil test (in other circumstances the Court may add words to help it make sense but will not impose their own deal to the point that the Court thinks is reasonable), if an employee one may argue that even if the covenant is binding the Court shouldn’t issue an injunction (though they may order damages) since that may prevent one from working at all (i.e. the more rarified the atmosphere of work the less likely the injunction)
  • Business Sales vs. Employment Contexts: Comparing RoTs for established businesses versus departing employees. Each state has a standard form for the sale of a business and in each of these contracts there is a form of restraint of trade given by the vendor if a component of the sale is goodwill (those restraints are far more readily upheld), try and find one or two business sales.

For some of Sydney’s other CPD seminars including on easements, please see Seminar History.

Thursday, 13 March 2025 (Afternoon)
Television Education Network – 19th Annual NSW Property Law Conference Sydney
Location: Sydney Central Hotel or Online
Topic: More than Meets the Eye: Proprietary Claims Against Real Property in Litigation
Full program link:

https://tved-media.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Brochures/brochure%20-%20NSWPropLaw2025_13.pdf

Dealing with proprietary claims against property is hardly new, or indeed even novel, in property law practice. However, it can be easy to gloss over the finer details of the law for matters that appear to, on the face of it, to be run of the mill. But there is often more than meets the eye when it comes to such matters – even if that only becomes apparent as you are preparing your arguments for trial. This is certainly true when it comes to assessing proprietary claims against property in a litigation context. Using a detailed case study, this session explores proprietary claims against property and explore the answers to questions to frequently (and not so frequently!) asked questions including:

Always who is seeking what and why for each case…

  1.       When would it be appropriate to make a proprietary claim against real property in litigation?
  2.       If you are going to make a claim, what is the nature or character of the claim?
  3.       What interim orders should you seek?
  4.       How should you frame your final relief sought?
  5.       How does the type of remedy sought impact on whether you go to the Federal Court (bankruptcy)?
  6.       When might leave be required (leave is dependent on whether the claim is proprietary in nature)?

For some of Sydney’s other CPD seminars including on easements, please see Seminar History.

Thursday, 13 March 2025
UNSW Edge Property Law Intensive
Location: UNSW Law School or Online
Topic: Specific Performance of Contracts for the Sale of Land
Full program link:

https://online.flippingbook.com/view/85864078/

 Specific performance bears two meanings :  

 Enforcement of Contracts: We often encounter situations where there is no dispute that a contract exists, yet controversies arise over actions like the issuance of a Notice to Complete. Is it valid? Is specific performance justified?


 Existence of Contracts: Disputes about whether a contract was ever formed can be even more complex. Take, for example, the case of Bugeja v Bugeja [2024] NSWSC 927, involving two brothers in agriculture entangled over a deed influencing an auction and subsequent land sale agreements.

Using Bugeja—a case where the presenter represented two of the parties—as a springboard, the seminar will pragmatically explore from the trenches:

  • The different scenarios where specific performance is sought.
  • Strategies to challenge or affirm a party’s readiness and ability to fulfill their contractual obligations.
  • The types of evidence pivotal in demonstrating one’s preparedness to perform.

Discretionary defenses against specific performance, such as claims of hardship and unfairness, which were significant in the Bugeja trial and judgment.

Wednesday, 12 March 2025

Legawise Conveyancing Symposium
Location: Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park or Online
Topic: Delivering Deeds in Escrow in Conveyancing Transactions: Can the Escrow Trump the Terms of the Deed?

Full program link:

https://legalwiseseminars.com.au/seminar-details?event=14307536306

  • From 2020, there have been cases in NSW, which have addressed the prickly issue of whether Deeds have been delivered in escrow. The mere fact that each party has the other’s signed counterpart does not in and of itself mean that exchange has occurred , if the documents have been provided subject to an escrow.
  • Can a laconic email under cover of which a Deed is sent, lead to an escrow ? How about a casual conversation between professional colleagues ? Can that escrow trump the otherwise applicable rules as to exchange of counterparts?
  • Can the escrow trump a clause in the Deed saying exchange is effected when the signed documents are provided to the all parties ?
  • Can there be delivery of a Deed without handing it over, and there be a handing over without delivery ?
  • What is the effect of delivery in escrow ?
  • How does this all differ to the operation of simple contracts ?

This seminar will consider the effect of these principles on contracts relating to development of land, including agreements for settlement of disputes relating to the sale of land. 

Sydney will be presenting a series of three CPD seminars for Legalwise titled Easement Essentials. Each seminar will focus on one of his areas of expertise and extract relevant practice tips for property lawyers, planning lawyers and conveyancers.

The details for each session are below:

  • Tuesday 18 July, 1–2pm – Easements: The Most Important Easement Case You’ve Never Heard of
  • Tuesday 25 July, 1–2pm – Easements: Litigating Like a Person Possessed
  • Tuesday 1 August, 1–2pm – Easements: True Construction – What Does it All Mean?

More information, including booking details, can be found via the Legalwise Seminars web link below:

https://legalwiseseminars.com.au/course/?eventtemplate=2999-easement-essentials-series&event=11197

For some of Sydney’s other CPD seminars including on easements, please see Seminar History.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Sydney will be presenting a CPD seminar for TEN (Television Education Network) on the 24th of February titled “Picking over the Bones of Recent Easement Cases”.

 

Easements continue to be grist for the mill in property law litigation. This session will examine in detail a number of recent judicial decisions on easements in NSW and their effect on both dominant and servient owners, including:

  • Rights of a dominant owner to maintain a carriageway
  • Evidentiary requirements for “track in use” cases
  • When can CCTV’s monitoring  an easement constitute an invasion of privacy
  • Can an easement be obtained via proprietary estoppel?
  • Considerations of the court in granting easements under s88K of the Conveyancing Act
  • Powers of the NSW Registrar General with respect to easements

 

The session will be run online from 10:05 – 10:55 am. More information, including booking details, can be found on the TEN website.

For some of Sydney’s other CPD seminars on easements, please see Seminar History.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Sydney is presenting a series of three CPD seminars with Legalwise in October titled “Easement Essentials Series 2: Over Lunch, Over 3 Weeks”. Each seminar will focus on an easement topic relating to Sydney’s practice:

 

 

The seminars will be offered online through Legalwise, both as a three-part series and individually. Please visit this link for more detailed information.

For some of Sydney’s property/conveyancing/easement CPD seminars, including last year’s Easement Essentials series, please see Seminar History.

We look forward to seeing some of you there.

Sydney is presenting a CPD seminar for Legalwise on 7 September 2022 from 10 am to 10:45 am titled “Dealing with Things Getting in the Way of Completion”. It forms part of Legalwises’ series “A Practical Guide to Critical Conveyancing Issues”, and will focus on the following topics relating to Sydney’s areas of practice:

 

The seminar will be in-person at Cliftons Margaret St. For a full schedule for the day, please see the link below.

https://legalwiseseminars.com.au/course/?eventtemplate=2428-a-practical-guide-to-critical-conveyancing-issues&event=9271

For some of Sydney’s property/conveyancing/easement CPD seminars, please see

https://www.sydneyjacobs.com.au/seminar-history/

We look forward to seeing some of you there.

 

Section 88K of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) gives a court the power to impose an easement if it is ‘reasonably necessary’ for the effective use or development of the plaintiff’s land.

In a recent article for Legalwise, Sydney distils some of the preconditions that ought be satisfiedin this type of litigation.

Centrally, in Acorp Development v HWR Pty Ltd [2018] NSWLEC 68, Robson J emphasises that parties must identify the terms of the proposed easements with reasonable precision.

What his Honour held has been a theme of recent case law.

Metes and bounds of the easement ought be agreed or adjudicated upon, prior to the court making a finding of “reasonable necessity”: Be sketchy!

Don’t be afraid to get sketchy!