Influencer marketing in Australia has increased by 11% year-on-year yet roughly 80% of Australian influencers surveyed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) may be violating the law. Whether you are a small or large business, you want to make sure that your influencer marketing practices align with the legal system to keep up company goodwill and keep out of legal trouble. Below are some tips for brands to ensure they implement to ensure compliance with both influencers and the legal system.

1. Disclosure of your influencer marketing
Ensure that all your influencers clearly disclose the nature of their affiliation with your brand. Influencers are required to reveal any sponsored content and any benefits they have received in return for posting. This entails disclosing any business relationships to followers and including disclaimers in sponsored content. In Australia, there are fines and penalties for not disclosing.

2. Create an Influencer Marketing Agreement/Contract
A legally binding contract is a beneficial tool for both brands and content creators. Avoid sending out products and being ghosted by influencers by generating a contract that clearly sets out the deliverables expected of the Content Creator. This creates better communication between parties for the vision of the campaign as well as ensures that both parties uphold their end of the collaboration.

3. Industry Specific Compliance
The niche of your brand may alter the regulatory compliance measures that need to take place to remain legally valid. For example, financial influencers ‘Finfluencers’ must ensure that they comply with the financial regulatory compliance including but not limited to a financial services license, authorised representative status or a clear warning that they are not involved in promoting financial services. The Australian Influencer Marketing Council (AiMCO) released a code of conduct that may be a useful guide to understanding your niche.

4. Comply with Copyright of Content
Unless specified in a contract, the Intellectual Property (IP) of content made belongs to the Influencer. As a result, even if a customer has paid for the content, the influencer will still have legal ownership rights over it. Either negotiate with your influencers prior to the contract being formed or explicitly mention the promotional purposes of the content within your Influencer Marketing Contract to stay compliant with Copyright Laws.

Legal vigilance is a necessary part of success in the current digital space. Adhering to these legal guidelines not only protects your company from future lawsuits and fines, but it also increases credibility and confidence in the online market.

Allegations of family violence can significantly impact parenting matters before the Family Court. When these allegations arise, they are not just background details — they become central to the Court’s decision about what is in the best interests of the child.

Under the Family Law Act 1975, one of the primary considerations in parenting matters is the need to protect children from physical or psychological harm caused by abuse, neglect or exposure to family violence. In fact, the Court must give greater weight to this factor than to the benefit of a child having a relationship with both parents.

What Is Considered As Family Violence?

Family violence is not limited to physical harm. It includes coercive and controlling behaviour, verbal abuse, emotional manipulation, financial control, and exposing children to conflict. For example, a child who regularly witnesses shouting matches, threats, or aggression between their parents is considered to be exposed to family violence.

How Are Allegations Handled?

Once legal proceedings are underway, and family violence is raised, the Court may:

The party making the allegation should provide as much evidence as possible, including:

Ultimately, the Court’s guiding principle is whether the other party/the child’s safety and emotional wellbeing is at stake. Parenting arrangements will be made to minimize harm, which may include supervised contact, changes to time arrangements, or, in some cases, no contact at all.

The Growing Challenge

As artificial intelligence platforms become increasingly capable and widely used, a new legal and ethical challenge has emerged: What happens when AI tools are used to commit crimes? From generating malicious code to producing misinformation or even assisting in scams, AI’s potential for misuse is real and troubling.

The core issue lies in the distribution of responsibility. Is it solely the user, who actively chooses to misuse the platform? Or does liability extend to the creators and operators of the AI, whose tools enable the harmful behaviour even if unintentionally?

 

The User's Role

Generally, in legal systems around the world, the user who commits a crime using an AI platform is held accountable for their actions. They made the choice, took the steps, and initiated the crime. If someone uses a hammer to hurt someone, we prosecute the person swinging the hammer not the toolmaker.

That said, AI platforms aren't hammers. They can generate autonomous responses, act at scale, and sometimes even assist in planning wrongdoing. This blurs the line between tool and accomplice.

 

The Creator’s Responsibility

Platform creators currently limit their liability through terms of service, disclaimers, and content moderation mechanisms. But the legal community is starting to ask tougher questions:

In extreme cases, if an AI platform is recklessly designed or its developers ignore clear signs of harm being done, there may be grounds for shared liability or civil lawsuits.

 

Pathways to Resolution

Resolving this dilemma requires a multi-pronged approach:

  1. Robust Safeguards

Creators must embed safety layers—such as misuse detection, content filters, and abuse reporting mechanisms—into every AI tool.

  1. Transparent Accountability

Clear documentation on what an AI is capable of, how it should be used, and how it’s monitored can reduce ambiguity and shift liability appropriately.

  1. Updated Legislation

Governments should develop legislation that defines AI-related offenses and determines when liability extends beyond the user to the developer or provider.

  1. Ethical Design

Developers need to adopt frameworks like "responsible AI" or "AI ethics by design," ensuring that their systems resist malicious use and promote transparency.

 

Conclusion

AI platforms are powerful and transformative but with power comes responsibility. While users should certainly be held accountable for criminal actions, creators of these tools must recognize their role in shaping safe and ethical technology. Liability should be shared based on intent, design safeguards, and responsiveness to misuse. Only then can we build a future where innovation and integrity go hand in hand.

Queensland has recently passed legislation which ensures that all venues being built for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games are exempt from 15 major planning rules, so projects are not held up by potential legal challenges. The Queensland government anticipates there will be early building works beginning soon. 

One of these exemptions allows for development at Brisbane’s Victoria Park. However, this has created backlash and formed a group named Save Victoria Park to protest infrastructure occurring on the green space. The Queensland Conservation Council director, Dave Copeman, stated that the government had ignored hundreds of appeals from the community and key stakeholders from using up this natural area. He has also stated that development should be “rigorously assessed and held to a high standard on First Nations engagement, community benefits and nature protection.” 

This new legislation has also implemented new changes for the approval of renewable energy projects and prioritising regional community interests to ensure that infrastructure goals are achieved. Large-scale wind and solar farms will require mandatory public consultation, and developers would need to enter into binding community benefit agreements with local councils. Although, some councils say the legislation imposes upfront processes that delay real outcomes. 

If you or someone you know wish to discuss this issue further, then please do not hesitate to contact us on 02 8999 9809.

Perplexity AI is a web search engine that processes queries and synthesises responses. It is known for retrieving factual and citation-based information which is more trustworthy compared to ChatGPT. However, it has recently received threats of legal action from the BBC for reproducing content word for word without permission.  

This is the first time the news agency has taken any sort of action against an AI company. BBC wrote to Perplexity, declaring it as copyright infringement in the UK and breaching the BBC’s terms of use. They also stated that popular AI firms, including Perplexity, were inaccurately summarising BBC news stories. It demanded Perplexity to stop using BBC’s content, delete any it has retained, and provide financial compensation for the information it has used.  

In defence, Perplexity stated that these claims were "just one more part of the overwhelming evidence that the BBC will do to preserve Google’s illegal monopoly” without any further explanation of the link between Google and the BBC. 

The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) responded about the concern that AI platforms were failing to uphold copyright laws and were being trained to scrape published content without permission or payment. 

This legal situation is starting to bring up the question of AI’s ethical use of original published content to create its responses and whether it follows copyright laws.  

If you or someone you know wish to discuss this issue further, then please do not hesitate to contact us on 02 8999 9809.

Spousal maintenance is when one party to a marriage ('Spouse A') must pay financial support to the other spouse ('Spouse B'), who is unable to adequately support themselves financially. These maintenance payments may exist during and after the relationship, meaning that you don't need to be divorced or separated in order to apply for spousal maintenance.

A spouse is defined as a party to a current or former marriage, and can include de facto relationships, in which case spousal maintenance is called 'de facto maintenance.' Other than different time periods for when an application for de facto maintenance has to be lodged, there are no other significant differences.

Under the Family Law Act, Spouse A is required to financially maintain Spouse B if the latter is unable to support themselves for one of the following reasons:

  1. Spouse B is taking care of a child of the relationship who is under the age of 18 years old
  2. Spouse B's age or physical or mental incapacity prevents them from obtaining a suitable job
  3. Any other adequate reason

To determine how much spousal maintenance should be paid by Spouse A, the Court will consider 2 key factors:

  1. The needs of Spouse B
  2. The capacity of Spouse A to pay maintenance

In their assessment, the Court will also take into account circumstances such as age, income, property owned, whether the marriage affected Spouse B's ability to earn income, and whether any children under the age of 18, or adult children with a disability, will be living with Spouse A or B. The Court will ultimately decide whether spousal maintenance should be paid at all, and if so, how much.

However, Spouse B is not entitled to spousal maintenance if they marry another person, unless the Court orders otherwise. If Spouse B start a new de facto relationship, the Court may take into account the financial circumstances in the new relationship when considering whether Spouse B can support themselves adequately.

Although you are not required to be represented by a lawyer or seek legal advice, family law can be complex. Obtaining legal advice will help you better under your legal rights and obligations.

If you or someone you know wish to discuss this issue further, then please do not hesitate to contact us on 02 8999 9809.

In an ever-changing world the use of AI is having a significant impact on our everyday lives. The hot topic on the agenda today is:

Should the paths of legal proceedings and AI use be allowed to cross?

In our modern day more and more lawyers are beginning to rely on artificial intelligence to prepare their submissions and evidence to court. But this tool has raised concerns amongst the court, due to issues surrounding the quality and accuracy of these submissions from artificial intelligence.  This is evidently shown through the defamation case which Dr Natasha Lakaev cited, Hewitt v Omari (2015).

But in reality, this case did not exist. In his judgment, Justice Blow stated the cause of this error was most likely due to generative AI. This mistake from AI was caused by a phenomenon called ‘hallucinations’. These hallucinations occur when generative AI perceives pattens or objects that are non-existent, therefore creating outputs that are inaccurate or nonsensical.

This isn’t the only case where AI was misused. In another case, a legal agent at the Queensland Administrative Tribunal had submitted 600 pages of repetitive, rambling, and nonsensical material which the court had suspected to be the use of artificial intelligence.

With the lack of laws and guidelines surrounding the use of generative AI in legal proceedings, this issue has emerged as a spark of debate and discussion in court systems.

If you or someone you know wish to discuss this issue further, then please do not hesitate to contact us on 02 8999 9809.

A binding financial agreement ('BFA') is a type of contract between two people who are contemplating entering into a marriage, or are already in one, or are in the process of separation or divorce.

There are three occasions in which couples could consider a BFA:

  1. Pre-Nup: before the marriage or relationship has been entered into. This is the most common and well-known form of BFA.
  2. Mid-Nup: during the marriage or relationship
  3. Post-Nup: after the marriage or relationship, when the couple is initiating separation or divorce proceedings

Contents of BFAs

There are a range of matters which are considered in BFAs including:

- What will happen to the wealth or property which each spouse had before they commenced their relationship

- What will happen to the wealth or property acquired during the course of the relationship

- Who is going to contribute to the costs of raising children, and what proportion will each spouse pay

- If there is a family home, what will happen to it

In order for BFAs to be legally enforceable, there are certain formal procedures and requirements which must be adhered to. Some examples of these requirements include that the BFA must be in writing and signed by both parties, and that both parties must have received independent legal advice about their rights, along with the advantages and disadvantages of the BFA prior to signing it. Additionally, both parties must have given full financial disclosure to each other.

Advantages of BFAs

Finally, here are some advantages of creating a BFA:

- Asset Protection: BFAs grant both parties peace of mind that their assets are safe and secure if the relationship unexpectedly comes to an end. Planning for the future will help parties be less anxious and unsure about how they will divide their property or wealth if this issue arises

- Clear and Fair Asset Division: especially with pre-nuptial agreements, these are often agreed upon when the parties are on good terms with one another. Hence, this avoids conflicts or tensions which may arise after the parties have separated or divorced, which may make it more difficult to clearly and amicably divide the assets.

- Avoiding Court Proceedings: BFAs can be finalised within 1-2 months if both parties agree on its terms. Without this sort of agreement, there is the possibility that parties can only reach a resolution through the Family Court, which can take years. Furthermore, initiating court proceedings carry a range of challenges, including extensive costs and significant emotional burdens.

If you or someone you know wish to discuss this issue further, then please do not hesitate to contact us on 02 8999 9809.

In a recent court case, a couple separated after 7 years, in which they cared for French bulldog, Junior and British bulldog, Winnie. Kate and her former partner adopted Winnie during their relationship while Junior was Kate’s former partner's dog, before they began dating. Kate was afraid that the dog would go to her former partner after the bond she built with him over the course of 7 years. What built up her fear was the issue that both dogs were registered under his name. If they had gone to court, he would have gotten custody.

On Nine News, Kate states, "They were our kids, we didn't have human kids," as well as "I live for them... They are literally my everything." emphasising the immense need she had for them. Fortunately, Kate’s situation was lucky and rare, "Ultimately, he just said, 'Look, I just want you to have them'. And he bought himself a new dog, and they just stayed with me," she said.

In most cases, pets are not recognised under family law proceedings and are considered property. Therefore, the individual under whoever’s name the property is registered under gets custody.

Now, under a national amendment to the Family Law Act coming into effect on June 11, courts will take into consideration the emotional bonds and welfare of a companion animal when deciding who gets custody after a breakup. Meaning, the pet no longer is handed to whoever it is registered under.

Smith states that she has noticed pets becoming an angering factor in separation proceedings and are often used as a pawn, thrown from one place to the other. She recounts an instance where a client of hers struggled to find accommodation for her two dogs and concluded to leave them with her estranged husband.

In one instance, a client of hers struggled to find alternative accommodation with her two Burmese mountain dogs, so she stayed with husband until the dogs passed away before she left the relationship.

Overall, many have concluded that, “These amendments are actually the law catching up with what’s happening on the ground”.

If you or someone you know wish to discuss this issue further, then please do not hesitate to contact us on 02 8999 9809.

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