An overview of legal procedure & case law
See Fair Work Act 2009 s.172(2)
An employer, or two or more employers that are single interest employers, may make an enterprise agreement with the employees who are employed at the time the agreement is made and who will be covered by the agreement.
Two or more employers are single interest employers if the employers are:
A joint venture is an association of persons for particular trading, commercial, mining, or other financial undertakings or endeavours with a view to mutual profit. Each participant usually, but not necessarily, contributes money, property or skill.[2]
A common enterprise was defined by Mason J in Australian Softwood Forests Pty Ltd v Attorney-General (NSW); Ex rel Corporate Affairs Commission:[3]
'An enterprise may be described as common if it consists of two or more closely connected operations on the footing that one part is to be carried out by A and the other by B, each deriving a separate profit from what he does, even though there is no pooling or sharing of receipts of profits. It will be enough that the two operations constituting the enterprise contribute to the overall purpose that unites them. There is then an enterprise common to both participants and, accordingly, a common enterprise.'
The term body corporate covers any artificial legal entity having a separate legal personality. These entities have perpetual succession; they also have the power to act, hold property, enter into legal contracts and sue and be sued in their own name.
Related bodies corporate refers to all bodies in the situation where one is a holding company of another body corporate, or a subsidiary of another body corporate, or a subsidiary of a holding company of another body corporate.[4]
[1] Fair Work Act s.172(5).
[2]Butterworths Australian Legal Dictionary, 1997, 645.
[3] Australian Softwood Forests Pty Ltd v Attorney-General (NSW); Ex Rel Corporate Affairs Commission [1981] HCA 49 (18 September 1981) at para. 133, [(1981) 148 CLR 121].
[4]Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s.50.