Awards & Recognition


Recognised by Doyle’s Guide as a Rising Star in Employment & WHS, 2016

About Olivia

Olivia is a Partner in the Maddocks Employment, Safety and People team.

Olivia has built a significant reputation acting in contentious and non-contentious matters, and provides a full-service employment and labour offering which includes employment, discrimination, corporate/M&A transactions and industrial relations advice and representation. Her experience also includes remuneration and benefits, including ASX, APRA and Corporations Act compliance, and executive employment matters.

Olivia’s practice also includes work health and safety, and she has extensive experience advising on and investigating employment-related complaints and whistleblower disclosures.

With a range of corporate clients (both public and private), Olivia regularly represents domestic and international corporations across a broad range of sectors including financial services, higher education, healthcare, development, consumer markets, energy, transport and telecommunications.

Experience

  • General advisory
    • Advised on all aspects of working relationships including performance management, disciplinary issues, underpayment claims, flexible work arrangements, confidentiality, restrictive covenants, independent contracting arrangements and management of ill and injured workers.
    • Advised employers and boards on executive employment matters including advising on remuneration arrangements for former and current directors and ensuring compliance with remuneration governance arrangements.
  • M&A, reorganisations and restructurings
    • Advised on the employment and industrial relations aspects of the divestment of various Commonwealth Bank managed businesses including the sale of the Colonial First State Global Asset Management business to Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation; the sale of Colonial First State to global investment firm KKR; the sale of the CBA General Insurance business to Hollard and the sale of the AUSIEX business to Nomura Research Institute, as well as the partial transfer of the Commonwealth Financial Planning business to the AIA Group.
    • Advised on various large scale corporate reorganisations across a range of industries including the simplification of the Commonwealth Bank Group employing entities with the consequential transfer of a large number of staff between entities and addressing complex industrial relations, payroll and operational issues.
    • Advised on transactions involving target businesses with complex underpayment and industrial relations compliance issues, including a target business subject to union activity concerning multi-employer bargaining.
  • Investigations and training
    • Conducted investigations into a number of highly sensitive and contentious workplace complaints and whistleblower disclosures for large organisations across a range of industries including construction and financial services.
    • Conducted Respect@Work training including for HR, WHS and legal teams of clients with a national presence.
    • Conducted WHS director training for various subsidiary boards in the context of corporate transactions which resulted in the transfer of staff to subsidiaries that were previously not employing entities.
  • Industrial relations
    • Advised on successful urgent application by Qube Holdings to the Federal Court in Victoria for an injunction to stop a secondary boycott by the Maritime Union of Australia.
    • Advised on and assisted with the drafting of a Go8 university’s new ‘simplified’ enterprise agreements.
  • Work health and safety
    • Advised on various WHS incidents, responses and compliance issues, including advising on a fatality involving a member of the public at a recreational facility.
    • Advised an energy company on its electrical safety obligations, including in relation to incidents and work in and around the network by third parties.
    • Advised corporations on various SafeWork notices and investigations, including investigations into WHS incidents involving fatalities.
    • Advised on a coronial inquest into a workplace fatality.
    • Advised various corporations, including corporations in the transportation (road and rail), gas and electrical industries, on their WHS risk management systems, including reviewing and amending policies, procedures, safe work method statements and job safety analysis templates, to ensure compliance with relevant WHS legislation.
  • Contentious workplace matters
    • Appeared as advocate in a jurisdictional objection in the Fair Work Commission for a client in the mining sector (with the objection upheld).
    • Advised on unfair dismissal, adverse action, breach of contract, discrimination and sexual harassment proceedings.
    • Advised on enforcement of post-employment restrictive covenants, including enforcement proceedings.
    • Advised on regulator underpayment investigations and prosecutions, including self-reporting, remediation and communications with the regulator, staff and unions.

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