Byline: Travis Johnson

The Unfair Contract Terms (UCT) regime is being updated to broaden its application and impose penalties for breach.

The Unfair Contract Terms regime (UCT) is intended to prevent businesses with a stronger bargaining position from relying on unfair terms in standard form contracts with consumers and/or small businesses.

• Prospective directors must obtain a director ID number before appointment.
• Existing directors must obtain their director ID numbers by 30 November 2022.

• Temporary measures to allow for virtual meetings, electronic signing and distribution of corporate documents by corporations have been permanently enacted.
• Additional changes have been introduced to modernise and update the Corporations Act 2001 (Corporations Act).

Under changes to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Registries Modernisation and Other Measures) Act 2020 (Cth) introduced in June 2021, all directors will be required to verify their identity as part of a new Director Identification Number (director ID) requirement.

The Government has announced proposed changes to the foreign investment review framework to take effect 1 January 2021 following the temporary measures imposed in March 2020.

In further recognition of the difficulties faced by companies in meeting strict corporate compliance requirements in a COVID-19 environment, the Treasurer released yesterday a ministerial determination permitting company general meetings to be held virtually and modifying the way companies can execute documents.

• ASIC has recently announced a one month extension for the lodgement of corporate reports
• Extension is available to unlisted entities.

From 10:30 pm, 29 March 2020, the monetary thresholds for substantial interests attracting the obligation to obtain Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approval have been reduced to $0.

Since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009, more and more people have become aware of blockchain technology, and its potential to revolutionise payments systems. However, blockchain has many applications beyond cryptocurrency. ‘Smart contracts’ – computer code which execute the terms of an agreement have the potential to revolutionise commercial transactions.