DOCSLIB.ORG

2016, 'Doing Business in Australia'

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
2016, 'Doing Business in Australia' Doing Business in Australia 2016 Our Australian team understands the global language of business. Baker McKenzie is unique among law firms in our ability to deliver the knowledge, experience and capabilities of our global network to our clients in the local market. Companies benchmark themselves against the best practice in their sectors, globally, not just domestically. We provide our clients with the innovative legal solutions they expect from the global top-tier law firm, together with commercial pragmatism and seasoned experience. The results speak the global language of success. Baker McKenzie’s Australian lawyers have advised on many of the headline Australian transactions of the last five decades. We continue to bring the experience of our global classroom to our clients in Australia through every transaction. We actively ensure that we have harnessed the best legal solution as tested through our global network, which currently comprises 77 offices in 47 jurisdictions globally. In Australia we have offices situated in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Our growth has been organic, giving us a strong, common culture that runs through our firm. For six decades we have followed clients into new markets, each time establishing offices driven by local lawyers and talent. Doing Business in Australia Contents 1. Australia – An overview .................................................................................... 1 Our Government ..............................................................................................................1 Economy and industries .................................................................................................1 The Federal and State systems ................................................................................... 2 Division of Powers .......................................................................................................... 2 State Government ..........................................................................................................4 Local Government ...........................................................................................................4 The legal system .............................................................................................................4 2. Foreign Investment – Regulations and Government Policy ...................7 Overview ........................................................................................................................... 7 Who is a foreign person? .............................................................................................. 7 Who is a Foreign Government Investor? ..................................................................8 Notification to FIRB ........................................................................................................9 Threshold tests .............................................................................................................. 11 Agribusiness.................................................................................................................... 14 Australian land ................................................................................................................15 Mining and oil and gas .................................................................................................17 Sensitive businesses .................................................................................................... 18 Critical Infrastructure ................................................................................................... 19 Financing transactions................................................................................................. 19 State regulation of foreign investment .................................................................20 FIRB approval process ...................................................................................................21 Penalties ..........................................................................................................................23 3. Forms of Business Organisation................................................................... 25 Introduction ....................................................................................................................25 Companies .......................................................................................................................25 Choice of branch or subsidiary ..................................................................................25 Public company or proprietary company ...............................................................26 Joint ventures ................................................................................................................ 27 Unincorporated joint ventures ..................................................................................28 Incorporated joint venture .........................................................................................28 Partnerships ....................................................................................................................28 Trading trusts .................................................................................................................29 Discretionary trusts ......................................................................................................29 Unit trusts .......................................................................................................................30 Sole trader .......................................................................................................................30 Comparative business advantages ..........................................................................30 4. Companies and securities regulation ..........................................................33 The national scheme .................................................................................................... 33 Registration requirements ......................................................................................... 33 Compliance and reporting requirements ...............................................................36 Annual statement filing ..............................................................................................38 Continuous disclosure by disclosing entities ........................................................38 Ongoing filing requirements .....................................................................................38 Company directors: duties and liabilities ...............................................................39 Offerings of securities .................................................................................................44 ASX listings of securities of foreign companies ...................................................45 Trading in securities and takeovers ........................................................................ 46 Employee share and options plan ............................................................................47 Return of capital ...........................................................................................................47 Buy-Backs ....................................................................................................................... 48 Corporate insolvency .................................................................................................. 48 5. Mergers and Acquisitions ...............................................................................55 Overview .........................................................................................................................55 Private companies ........................................................................................................55 Public companies ..........................................................................................................62 6. Taxation...............................................................................................................69 General .............................................................................................................................69 Income tax ......................................................................................................................69 Foreign debt funding and interest withholding tax........................................... 75 Thin capitalisation ........................................................................................................76 Corporation reconstruction ........................................................................................76 Royalties .......................................................................................................................... 77 Management and service fees .................................................................................. 77 Foreign exchange gains and losses .......................................................................... 77 Taxation of financial arrangements ......................................................................... 77 Transfer pricing ..............................................................................................................78 Capital gains tax ............................................................................................................79 Foreign Resident Capital Gains Withholding ......................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Business Structures in Australia
    Business Structures in Australia 1. Introduction This paper presents an overview of the various types of business structures available in Australia – each of which necessarily attracts different legal and taxation consequences. 2. Sole Trader When a person conducts business as an individual, he or she is a sole trader. From a legal point of view there is no difference between the person and the business. As such, the liabilities of the business are the liabilities of the individual – he or she is personally liable for any and all business-related obligations, such as debts resulting from the purchase of goods or services or from court judgments and for the performance of warranty obligations in respect of goods supplied or work performed. It is possible for a sole trader to carry on business under a name other than his or her own name. In that case, the name must be registered as a business name. Until 30 June 2011, that will have to be done under the business names legislation in each of the state(s) and/or territory(ies) where the business is conducted. As from 1 July 2011, a notional business name registration system, administered by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), will be introduced. 3. Partnerships A partnership is where two or more individuals, corporate or other entities, agree to carry on business together with a view to profit. All partners in the partnership must have the same goals, and, so far as third parties are concerned, each partner is equally responsible for decisions made by the other partner or partners on behalf of the business.
    [Show full text]
  • Australia Introduction
    GLOBAL PRACTICEINTRODUCTION GUIDE AUSTRALIA Definitive global law guides offering comparative analysis from top ranked lawyers ContributingLAW AND PRACTICE: Editor p.p.2 ElizabethDaleContributed Cendali by Morony HerbertKingZhong & Lun Spalding Smith Law Freehills Firm CliffordKirklandThe ‘Law &Chance& EllisPractice’ LLPLLP sections provide easily accessible information Shareholders’on navigating the legal systemRights when conducting business & in the jurisdiction. Leading lawyers explain local law and practice at key Shareholdertransactional stages andActivism for crucial aspects of doing business. TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS: p.<?> Contributed by Hogan Lovells (CIS) The ‘Trends & Developments’ sections give an overview of current trends and developments in local legal markets. Leading lawyers analyse Australia particular trends or provide a broader discussion of key developments Herbert Smith Freehills in the jurisdiction. chambers.com INTRODUCTION LAW AND PRActice Law and Practice Contributed by Herbert Smith Freehills Contents 1. Shareholders’ Rights p.3 2. Shareholder Activism p.8 1.1 Types of Company p.3 2.1 Legal and Regulatory Provisions p.8 1.2 Type or Class of Shares p.4 2.2 Level of Shareholder Activism p.9 1.3 Primary Sources of Law and Regulation p.4 2.3 Shareholder Activist Strategies p.10 1.4 Main Shareholders’ Rights p.5 2.4 Targeted Industries / Sectors / Sizes of 1.5 Shareholders’ Agreements / Joint Venture Companies p.10 Agreements p.5 2.5 Most Active Shareholder Groups p.11 1.6 Rights Dependent Upon Percentage of Shares p.5 2.6 Proportion of Activist Demands Met in Full / 1.7 Access to Documents and Information p.5 Part p.11 1.8 Shareholder Approval p.6 2.7 Company Response to Activist Shareholders p.11 1.9 Calling Shareholders’ Meetings p.6 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Contemporary Australian Corporate Law Stephen Bottomley , Kath Hall , Peta Spender , Beth Nosworthy Frontmatter More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-316-62827-0 — Contemporary Australian Corporate Law Stephen Bottomley , Kath Hall , Peta Spender , Beth Nosworthy Frontmatter More Information CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN CORPORATE LAW Contemporary Australian Corporate Law provides an authoritative, contextual and critical analysis of Australian corporate and inancial markets law, designed to engage today’s LLB and JD students. Written by leading corporate law scholars, the text provides a number of fea- tures including: •a well-structured presentation of topics for Australian corporate law courses • consistent application of theory with discussion of corporate law principles (both theoretical and historical) •comprehensive discussion of case law with modern examples • integration of corporate law and corporate governance, all with clarity, insight and technical excellence. Central concepts are enhanced with dynamic and relevant discussions of corporate law in context, including debates relating to the role of corporations in society, the global convergence of corporate law, as well as corporations and human rights. Exploring the social, political and economic forces which shape modern cor- porations law, Contemporary Australian Corporate Law encourages a forward- thinking approach to understanding key concepts within the ield. Stephen Bottomley is Professor and Dean of the ANU College of Law at the Australian National University. Kath Hall is Associate Professor of the ANU College of Law at the Australian National University. Peta Spender is Professor and
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Contents
    LAWS2014/LAWS5014 Notes Table of Contents INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 2 What is a company? ................................................................................................................................... 2 Historical development of the corporate form .............................................................................................. 2 Theories and conceptions of the corporation ............................................................................................... 5 Policy concerns .............................................................................................................................................. 6 Types of companies ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Corporate constitution and organs ................................................................................................................ 8 Corporate groups ........................................................................................................................................... 8 Administration of Australian companies ..................................................................................................... 10 CORPORATE PERSONALITY AND LIMITED LIABILITY ...................................................................................... 11 The doctrine of corporate
    [Show full text]
  • The Privatisation of Australian Corporate Law Ross Grantham1
    1 The Privatisation of Australian Corporate Law Ross Grantham1 Anyone looking at the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) would be justified in thinking that company law in Australia was both wholly statutory and an instrument of public regulation. Although Anglo-Australian company law may have originally grown out of the law of partnership and been built, largely by the courts, from the material of the private law, the growth over the last 30 years in the complexity, range of matters covered and sheer volume of the Corporations Act would seem to confirm the intuition that Australia’s company law is now both statutory and public. However, while there is no denying the shift in the source of company law, the particular form corporate regulation now takes is actually making Australian company law more, rather than less, private. This trend has at least two important implications for the future of Australian company law and the Corporations Act in particular. First, the primary audience of the law must now be understood to be those who are involved in the operation of companies – business people rather than lawyers and the courts. If that is the case, then the form, language and complexity of the Corporations Act seems wholly ill-suited to that task. Second, privatisation brings to the fore the issues of the legitimacy of corporate power, and the purposes for which as a matter of policy we 1 Professor of Commercial Law, T C Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland. 27 NEW DIRECTIONS FOR Law IN AUSTRALIA should recognise the corporate form.
    [Show full text]
  • Corporate Insolvency. Relax?
    Corporate insolvency. Relax? The government’s relaxation of wrongful trading rules. This weekend past, Business Secretary Alok Sharma announced that wrongful trading rules are to be relaxed to remove the threat of personal liability for company directors so they can focus on keeping their business going. The relaxation will apply retrospectively for three months from 1 March 2020, meaning that a third of the period has already lapsed. With two months to go, what waits on the horizon for company directors? Where a company is in good health, Section 172(1) of the Companies Act 2006 imposes a duty on a company’s directors to act in the way they consider, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members as a whole. In times of trouble, however, the emphasis can shift from that of acting in the best interests of a company’s shareholders to protecting the company’s creditors. If the directors continue to trade in circumstances where they knew or ought to have concluded that there was no reasonable prospect that the company would avoid going into insolvent liquidation then they may be personally liable for wrongful trading under Section 214 of the Insolvency Act 1986. The court may then make a declaration for the directors to contribute to the company’s assets during its winding up or administration, to the benefit of the company’s creditors. In practice this would mean, for example, that, where a company running a shop that became unable to pay its rent (and thus would have no real prospect of avoiding an insolvent liquidation on the presentation of a petition presented by the landlord), if the company were to continue to trade (e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • 30 July 2018 Mavis Tan ASX Corporate Governance Council C/O
    30 July 2018 Mavis Tan ASX Corporate Governance Council c/o ASX Limited PO BOX H224 Australia Square NSW1 By email: [email protected] Dear Ms Tan Draft Fourth Edition of the Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations INTRODUCTION 1. The Law Council of Australia (LCA) welcomes the opportunity to comment on the ASX Corporate Governance Council’s draft fourth edition of the Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations (CGPR). These comments have been prepared by the Corporations Committee (Committee) of the Business Law Section (BLS) of the LCA, which is a specialist committee of corporations and securities law practitioners and academics. 2. The comments below respond to the ASX Corporate Governance Council’s Review of the ASX Corporate Governance Council’s Principles and Recommendations Public Consultation, released 2 May 2018 (Consultation Document). 3. The Committee notes the significant place that the CGPR have come to occupy in Australian corporate governance theory and practice since the first edition was released in 2004. Their impact is not limited to the ASX listed entities to which the CGPR directly apply; many of the Principles and Recommendations have been adopted formally and informally elsewhere, including in other self-regulatory codes. This is noted in the Consultation Document. However, these comments focus specifically on the application of the CGPR to listed entities. 4. In preparing these comments, the Committee recognises that the CGPR comprise both Principles and Recommendations and that the two serve distinct functions in the architecture of the CGPR. The Principles are (or ought to be) seen as “non- negotiable” – that is, they are foundational principles of corporate governance with which all listed entities should comply.
    [Show full text]
  • Companies Act Discussion Paper
    PROPOSALS FOR AMENDMENTS TO THE NOVA SCOTIA COMPANIES ACT A DISCUSSION PAPER 2005 Prepared for Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations by COX HANSON O'REILLY MATHESON Crown copyright © 2005, Province of Nova Scotia, all rights reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................- 1 - 2. SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS..............................................................................- 4 - A. The Role of the Court in Amalgamations and Fundamental Changes of ULCs (Chapter 3) ........................................................................................................ - 4 - B. The Role of the Court in Reductions of Capital (Chapter 4) ................................ - 5 - C. The Role of the Court in the Restoration of Struck-Off Companies (Chapter 5)..... - 7 - D. The Role of the Court in The Alteration of the Memorandum of Association (Chapter 6) - 8 - Recommendation .............................................................................................. - 9 - E. Financing Share Purchases (Chapter 7) ............................................................... - 9 - F. Capital of Continuing Companies (Chapter 8)..................................................... - 9 - G. Authorized Capital Limits (Chapter 9)............................................................... - 10 - H. Special Resolutions and Shareholders' and Directors' Meetings (Chapter 10) .... - 12 - I. Documents to be available at the Registered
    [Show full text]
  • Doing Business in Australia Has Been Prepared for the DOING BUSINESS Use of Businesses Exploring the Opportunities of Establishing a Presence in Australia
    ABSTRACT Doing Business in Australia has been prepared for the DOING BUSINESS use of businesses exploring the opportunities of establishing a presence in Australia. Given the ever-changing business landscape this document has been prepared as a guide and we IN AUSTRALIA recommend professional advice should be sought. Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................ 0 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 2 Business structures ............................................................................................................................. 5 Tax Implications of Structures ......................................................................................................... 7 Sole Trader/ Sole Proprietorship ..................................................................................................... 7 Partnership ....................................................................................................................................... 7 Company .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Trust ................................................................................................................................................. 8 Accounting, Reporting and Audit requirements
    [Show full text]
  • Corporate Theory and Corporate Law Reform in Australia
    Agenda, Volume 1, Number 2, pages 179-188 Corporate Theory and Corporate Law Reform in Australia Ian M. Ramsay f n the last few years Australian corporate law has been significantly reformed. The I reforms include: • increased duties imposed upon company directors; • regulation of transactions between public companies and their related parties; • increased disclosure requirements for public companies; • new liability upon parent companies where a subsidiary trades while it is insolvent and heightened liability upon directors for the insolvent trading of their compa­ nies; • a wider definition of insider trading; and • increased regulation of public unit trusts. Tliis article evaluates some of these reforms in the light of a range of current theories of the corporation. Two Theories of the Corporation Recent debates about corporate law focus mainly on two contrasting theories of the corporation: the managerialist (or institutionalist) theory and the contractual theory (Symposium, 1989; Macey, 1993). The theories have different implications for cor­ porate law and therefore corporate law reform. They are both concerned with corpo­ rate governance; in particular, they both endeavour to formulate ways to ensure that the managers of companies act in the interests of shareholders. But they differ fun­ damentally on how this objective is to be accomplished. The managerialist theory of the corporation emphasises corporate management and the power that it wields. The issue is whether management holds and exercises this flower legitimately (Bratton, 1989:1476). Critics of management argue that man- Ian Ramsay is Harold Ford Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Melbourne. 180 Ian Ramsay agers often exercise power without accountability to shareholders; in public compa­ nies, shareholders are unable to monitor effectively the managers of their companies, so that legal intervention is needed to protect the interests of shareholders.
    [Show full text]
  • Companies Act
    CAYMAN ISLANDS COMPANIES ACT (2021 Revision) Supplement No. 8 published with Legislation Gazette No. 4 of 12th January, 2021. PUBLISHING DETAILS Cap. 22 [Law 3 of 1961 and 12 of 1962] of the 1963 Revised Edition of the Laws consolidated with Laws 12 of 1962, 9 of 1966, 1 of 1971, 7 of 1973, 24 of 1974, 25 of 1975, 19 of 1977, 16 of 1978, 6 of 1980, 21 of 1981, 34 of 1983, 2 of 1984, 22 of 1984, 15 of 1985, 38 of 1985, 24 of 1987, 14 of 1988, 14 of 1989, 10 of 1990, 3 of 1991, 23 of 1991 (part), 11 of 1992, 3 of 1993, 23 of 1993, 33 of 1993, 2 of 1994, 8 of 1994, 14 of 1996, 26 of 1997, 4 of 1998, 6 of 1998, 20 of 1998 (part), 5 of 1999, 7 of 2000 (part), 5 of 2001, 10 of 2001, 29 of 2001, 46 of 2001, 22 of 2002, 26 of 2002, 28 of 2003, 13 of 2006, 15 of 2007, 12 of 2009, 33 of 2009, 37 of 2010, 16 of 2011, 29 of 2011, 6 of 2012, 14 of 2012, 29 of 2012, 1 of 2013, 6 of 2013, 14 of 2015, 3 of 2016, 2 of 2017, 42 of 2017, 37 of 2018, 46 of 2018, 10 of 2019, 56 of 2020 and the Companies (Amendment of Schedule) Order, 2011, Schedule 4 of the Companies Law Departmental Notice, 2015 and Schedule 4 of the Companies Law Departmental Notice, 2017. Revised under the authority of the Law Revision Act (2020 Revision).
    [Show full text]
  • American Corporate Governance Index
    american corporate governance index Making Strides Amid Crisis TABLE of CONTENTS Introduction.......................................................................................3 Corporate Governance in 2020 ..................................................... 4 Understanding the grade .............................................................. 5 Key Observations ............................................................................. 6 Incremental improvement across all principles, but trouble spots remain .............................................................. 6 Boards still don’t challenge management .................................. 6 Regulation and size matter during crises ................................... 6 Management structure, CAE reporting lines correlate to stronger governance .................................................................7 Lowest scoring principles continue to lag .................................. 9 COVID-19’s Impact .........................................................................11 Corporate Governance Roles ....................................................... 12 Three Lines Model ..........................................................................13 Defining the Guiding Principles .................................................. 14 Guiding Principles of Corporate Governance .......................... 16 Additional Findings ....................................................................... 25 Guiding Principles ........................................................................
    [Show full text]