Month: November 2025

As we race toward the end of 2025, there’s a key question plaguing property lawyers trying to navigate the ACCC merger reforms (which are to due to start on 1 January 2026): Will the ACCC release the anticipated refinements to its guidelines before then to provide urgently needed clarification to make the reforms more manageable for commercial lease transactions and simplify the monetary thresholds?

If you’re not sure about how your property portfolio will be impacted feel free to drop me a line, or you can read more about it here – Why the ACCC assesses mergers and acquisitions | ACCC

– By Joseph Consalvi

Is anyone else in the legal / property fraternity having issues with checking the validity of bank guarantees? The fakes are getting increasingly good, the original (genuine) bank guarantees are looking increasingly sloppy (you’ve got no idea what we see come across our desks!) and it’s almost impossible to get anyone at most issuing banks to confirm authenticity for “privacy reasons”. In fact, we’ve been advised by these banks that only the customer can confirm authenticity. I respect the privacy laws, but the bank is providing a one-way irrevocable legal covenant to the favouree and surely this would be reason enough for that bank to have an overriding obligation to confirm authenticity to that favouree (and preferably, the favouree’s lawyers)?

– By Jodie Masson