Website Terms and Conditions

Drafting appropriate website terms and conditions can be difficult. They need to be customized to your particular business situation and have regard for the exact regulatory environment which your business operates in and the particular legal status of the relationships which you have with customers. If you sell products directly online you will have a very different set of disclaimers and terms and conditions to what you will have if you provide services online or if your website is simply a system for generating leads and marketing rather than actually making sales or providing a product or service.

However, because of the increasingly online nature of almost all commerce in the modern world, it is essential that you are legally protected when you are working online so that you do not expose yourself to criticism, complaint, perhaps negative publicity and even law suits as a result of the complaints which you get because you do not have an effective set of terms and conditions in operation on your website. Also, to have a set of website terms and conditions professional drafted by a lawyer could literally cost tens of thousands of dollars. If you use an appropriate template, the cost of this could be cut significantly if you can give your lawyer something to work with so that they do not have to start from scratch. Many businesses also continuously update their website terms and conditions in order to ensure that they are continually compliant with the legislation in their industry and that the government regulators which investigate and punish those who do not comply will not come knocking at their door and demand to inspect their business operations. For all of these reasons, have good website terms and conditions is an essential tool in your business.

To obtain appropriate website terms and conditions for your business, we have a number of templates available here:

Website Terms and Conditions

Employment contract: fixed term senior staff

Senior Staff and management are essential to the running of any business. Having a contract which is suitably tailored for them is also essential to ensuring that your business is protected when you employ them. This is a standard, comprehensive employment contract for any fixed term, senior employee in any line of work. Its suitability for senior employees comes about because of the additional and broader provisions to cover intellectual property matters and other areas where a senior person may have scope to damage the business in the event of a dispute. Further it provides for a situation where the employment comes to an end at a certain date or upon the completion of a certain event rather than providing for continuing employment.

It does not seek to provide set minimum requirements allowed under any particular Act, but instead, provides a sound contract of employment under the common law system.

Further, this contract of employment opts out of recent changes to industrial law, especially the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005 and other related legislation. The Minister for Employment once said, “… if you don’t like this Act you still have access to common law contracts”. This is one such common law contract. This document is suitable only if you are not interested in AWAs. It provides a comprehensive template for all part time employees. If you are after an AWA, you should go to the Office of Employment Advocate (OEA).

Application and features

Includes model disciplinary and grievance procedure;
Flexible – alternative paragraphs to suit your needs;
Suitable for any level of tradesman;
Invaluable explanatory notes;
Suitable for any size of business;
Written in plain English.

Contents

Trial period if required;
Alternative holiday arrangements;
Retirement;
Sickness, certification, sick pay;
Arrangements during notice period;
Summary termination;
Data protection;
Clear and comprehensive grievance and disciplinary procedures.

To obtain a standard employment contract for fixed term senior staff please click here:

Employment contract: fixed term senior staff

Employment contract: admin

Admin staff perform one of the essential functions of a business. Without accurate records, accounts and effective administration, most businesses simply cannot function effectively even if administration may be a little on the boring side of the possible business functions which a person can fulfill. We have a document available on this site which is a standard, comprehensive employment contract for any full time employee in an admin position within any type of business.

It does not seek to provide set minimum requirements allowed under any particular Act, but instead, provides a sound contract of employment under the common law system.

Further, this contract of employment opts out of recent changes to industrial law, especially the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005 and other related legislation. The Minister for Employment once said, “… if you don’t like this Act you still have access to common law contracts”. This is one such common law contract. This document is suitable only if you are not interested in AWAs. It provides a comprehensive template for all part time employees. If you are after an AWA, you should go to the Office of Employment Advocate (OEA).

Application and features

Includes model disciplinary and grievance procedure
Flexible – alternative paragraphs to suit your needs
Suitable for any level of tradesman
Invaluable explanatory notes
Suitable for any size of business
Written in plain English

Contents

Trial period if required;
Alternative holiday arrangements;
Retirement;
Sickness, certification, sick pay;
Arrangements during notice period;
Summary termination;
Confidentiality;
Data protection;
Clear and comprehensive grievance and disciplinary procedures.

To obtain an employment contract suitable for admin staff click here:

Employment contract: admin

Having a whistle blower policy and whistleblower lawyer are essential elements to ensuring that you can effectively protect your organisation from the problems, which can occur as a result of not protecting whistle blowers or having whistle blowers release information in an uncontrolled way. There are a number of laws which protect employees who ‘blow the whistle’ in relation to matters such as occupation health and safety, the criminal law, some workplace relations matters in relation to discrimination at work and the other elements of the legal aspects of workplace rights. Usually, the intention of the laws on making of disclosures concerning workplace activities is to protect employees who profess from being subject to any detrimental or unfair treatment as a result.

This comprehensive policy sets out the terms on which your policy encourages staff to speak up, ensuring their views are listened to. If implemented inline with the explanatory notes, a whistleblowing policy can also prove useful as a risk management strategy – that is, a way to spot potential pitfalls before they happen.

We have devised a policy which aids compliance with your obligations under employment legislation a basis for workplace ethics and guidance within relevant legislation that ensures that all employees know the steps they must take if they encounter malpractice. The document is addressed to your staff, so that compliance really happens.

Application and features of this document

Covers a wide range of issues from criminal offences to the protection of the environment, endangerment of health & safety of any individual and deliberate concealment;

Doubles as a whistleblowing policy to prevent malpractice by staff and also as a risk management policy in that it could help to prevent larger scale mischief from happening;

Provides both you and your employees with an easy reference as to raising concerns in the workplace;

Document and explanatory notes in plain English.

Contents

Company statement;
Explanation of whistleblowing;
Named people responsible for implementing the policy;
Application to whom;
When to use the policy;
Who to report to;
Actions to be taken when making a disclosure;
Investigation of disclosure;
Confidentiality;
Protection and support for whistleblowers;
Corrective action and compliance;
Monitoring and review of policy.

If you are the owner of a piece of copyright, you may want to use a formal document to legally secure your rights in the process of the assignment of copyright. There are a number of standard templates available for this purpose. Copyright can take any form such as a book, film, software, e-book, radio program or virtually any original artistic creation which is capable of attracting rights under copyright law in Australia which is largely governed by a combination of the copy right legislation and the common law regarding the more specific elements of the law of copyright. In Australia, the system of copyright is administered by the IP Australia which also handles the trademark and patent administration system. These are the three major forms of intellectual property protection: trademark, patent and copyright. Although the task of administering copyright is quite minimal because of the lack of registration process in Australia.

The document which we have available on this site is suitable for the transfer of rights in copyright from one person (or company) to another. The copyright may be in any type of work – a book, an e-book, computer programme, a screenplay, painting, document, article and so on.

In English law, legal assignments of copyright must be in writing. (It is possible to have an equitable assignment that is not in writing, but this is not usually desirable because of the uncertainty which can be created as a result.)

Application and features

Written in plain English
Protects both parties

This agreement covers:

Payment: how, how much and when
Identification of the copyright work or creation
Dispute resolution
Succession and assignment
Representations and warranties
Appropriate legal provisions – warranties, exclusions, indemnities

If you would like to obtain a template to work from in relation to your assignment of copyright, all you need do is click here:

Assignment of Copyright