MST Lawyers’ Alicia Hill Presents at Franchise Association of New Zealand

Alicia Hill, a Principal in our Dispute Resolution and Litigation team, presented to the Franchise Association of New Zealand (FANZ) national conference in Rotorua on 20-21 June 2019. The presentation centred on developments in Australian franchising notably focusing on the parliamentary inquiry report. Alicia took the approach of highlighting the wood from amongst the 70 odd recommendation trees of the inquiry’s report including making four predictions on changes likely to occur as a result of the inquiry’s report. These included:

• Amendments to the disclosure document format for disclosure of rebates;
• Amendments to the disclosure document to the terms of occupation (tenancy) of premises by franchisees;
• A collective bargaining exemption for franchisees to be granted by the ACCC; and
• A change to the definition of ‘small business’ in the unfair contract terms legislative regime to increase coverage of the regime.

As Alicia has committed to attend next year’s FANZ conference, the attendees at this year’s conference indicated that they would monitor the predictions to see if these came to fruition as predicted by Alicia.

If you would like to speak with Alicia Hill about the presentation, you can email or call +61 3 8540 0200.