Mark Beyer

In-house corporate lawyers are keen to explore alternatives to traditional hourly billing but struggle to gain buy-in from their external legal advisers, an industry survey has found.

Twenty-three Western Australian inventions, in sectors ranging from drug delivery to communications and minerals processing, will be on show at next month’s Commercialisation Expo 2006 in Melbourne.

The federal government provides just more than $50 million each year to native title representative bodies (NTRB), yet both business and Aboriginal groups agree this is grossly inadequate.

Native title agreements reached in Western Australia during the past year have a major focus on providing employment and business opportunities for Aboriginal people.

Australia’s biggest live sheep exporter, Emanuel Exports Pty Ltd, is planning a constitutional challenge to animal cruelty charges brought by the state government under the Animal Welfare Act.

Construction and development group GRD Ltd intends to sell down 180 million shares in its New Zealand gold mining subsidiary OceanaGold, now reducing its stake from 56.94 per cent to 6.94 per cent.

Malaysian investment fund Navis Capital Partners is looking to expand its Australian presence after entering an agreement to buy Perth-based printing franchise Worldwide Online Printing.

Mortgage brokers could double their share of housing loans with the biggest winners likely to be the industry’s big players such as Perth-based Australian Finance Group, a conference in Perth was told last week.

The founding shareholders of Eneabba Gas Ltd have taken the extraordinary step of canceling 35 million shares and 26.25 million options collectively worth $12.5 million.