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  • Financial, Privacy

Have You Seen Your Credit Status Lately?!

Have you checked your credit status lately? Chances are you’ve never heard of organisations like VEDA, Dunn and Bradstreet or Experian, but you can bet they’ve heard of you. They provide credit reports to financial lenders. So if you have a credit card or phone, or you’re named on a utility bill, or if you’ve ever applied for a loan of any kind, then almost certainly at least one of them will have a detailed file on you. According to its latest report, Veda alone holds credit information on 20 million Australians.
  • Chris Nyst, Litigation, Sport

The Candyman Can

Our perhaps most flamboyant and controversial client, the Gold Coast’s own Candyman, tobacco franchising supremo Mr Travers Beynon, had a win this week in the Supreme Court when Justice James Douglas froze $250,000 in sponsorship funds paid by his company Freechoice Australia to the Lucas Dumbrell V8 racing team, ahead of this weekend’s Townsville 400. As well, Justice Douglas ordered the Dumbrell team to remove the Candyman’s decals from its cars and account for all of their assets ahead of a major damages action launched by Freechoice, to be heard later this year.
  • Criminal Law, Technology

Trolls Beware

The Australian justice system has at last stomped decisively into the 21st century, striking out at online bullying and harassment. Following the first Commonwealth criminal prosecution of its kind last week, a young man entered a plea of guilty to a charge laid against him by AFP investigators in relation to a series of offensive comments he had posted online regarding a photo of a woman’s Tinder profile that one of his friends had posted on Facebook. It has been reported the man posted some 50 disparaging attacks on the photo, including rape threats and other derogatory and threatening comments. Following his plea of guilty, he was remanded to be sentenced later this year, and could face up to 3 years imprisonment.
  • Chris Nyst, International, Opinion, Property, Travel

The Winds Of Change

What goes around comes around, I guess. My wife and I spent this week visiting our youngest daughter at her home in Brooklyn, New York City, where we rubbed shoulders with the beautiful people on the borough’s trendy Bedford Avenue. How times have changed.
  • Chris Nyst, Opinion, Sport

Ali RIP

Over the weekend, a great hero passed away. Muhammad Ali was not just a giant of the sport of boxing, he was one of the most influential characters 20th century, one whose dynamic personality was an integral part of the winds of change that swept through the post-war period.
  • Chris Nyst, Opinion, Politics

American Pie

Something crazy is happening in America right now. Crazy, and eerily familiar. As the left and right of US politics fight their perennial good fight, waging familiar and well-worn party-political warfare on the hustings, the man in middle, the average American, lays awake nights worrying it’s all going down the toilet in a hurry, praying for a messiah who will lead him from the wilderness, but fearing he will never come, because no one is listening and no one really cares. Then, just when it’s least expected, along comes a maverick with a crazy hair-do and a ton of front, who steps up onto a soap box and smashes all the taboos keeping Average John awake at night, saying the things he would have said himself except everyone kept telling him that kind of stuff was way off limits and not to be spoken of in public.
  • Employment Law, Jonathan Nyst

Fair Enough

"That’s not fair.” My client’s assessment was spot-on, and more than a little ironic, given he was referring to the Fair Work Act. Like justice, fairness can be an elusive concept. I had just finished explaining to my client a few home truths about Fair Work claims. The former employee he had dismissed for incompetence and repeated failure to show up to work was seeking damages for wrongful dismissal. In my view there was absolutely no merit in the claim, and I was confident we would win in court. But the exercise would still be an expensive one for my client. Even if you win a Fair Work claim, the Act precludes reimbursement of a litigant’s costs unless they can show the other party acted vexatiously or unreasonably. Which means claimants often have everything to gain and nothing to lose, even if their claim fails.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law

Sex and the Sleepy

Life is a risky undertaking that involves an endless series of perilous decisions. Some turn out triumphant, others disastrous.
  • Family Law

Cracking The Egg – Separation and Superannuation Split

We work all our lives to create a nest-egg that will hopefully sustain us comfortably in our retirement, and in this day and age most of us jealously consider our superannuation investments to be our own precious, private nest-egg. To some extent it’s true. Superannuation funds are held in trust, and therefore they can't generally be attacked by creditors, even a bankruptcy situation. But that doesn't mean they are unassailable.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Domestic Violence

Between Main and Dessert

“So what did you think of the Baden-Clay decision?” It was the question I’d been dreading all night. As soon as it hit the dinner table seven pairs of accusing eyes turned my way, waiting for the slightest slip-up. “Well…”
  • Family Law

Sadly, A Growth Industry – Relationship Breakdown And Separation

In the mid-1960’s around 10% of all Australian marriages ended in divorce. According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies today that figure has ballooned to around 40%. Relatively little is known about de facto relationships, but their rates of failure are estimated to be even higher. Sadly, marriage breakdown has become a growth industry.
  • Criminal Law

Scary Stories – Making A Murderer – Wrongful Conviction

This summer many of us became budding couch detectives and expert criminologists, all from the air-conditioned comfort of our very own lounge-rooms, as we sat glued to the TV screen and on the edge of our seats, watching the rivetting Netflix series Making a Murderer. Without giving away too much for those who haven’t finished the series, Making a Murderer is a documentary treatment of the true crime story of Steven Avery, a man convicted of sexual assault and attempted murder, and then exonerated and freed from prison after serving 18 years for the crime. But the story doesn’t end there, and - SPOILER ALERT - the next shocking turn of events has left many people stunned and outraged over the terrifyingly capricious and sometimes sinister workings of the American legal system, leaving many scratching their heads and asking 'could what happened to Stephen Avery happen here in Australia?'

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