
Publication
Case update: High Court decision
On 6 August 2025, the High Court handed down the decision of Helensburgh Coal Pty Ltd v Bartley [2025] HCA 29 (Helensburgh Coal Decision).
Australia | Publication | March 2024
Penalties for many environmental crimes will double under the Environment Protection Legislation Amendment (Stronger Regulation and Penalties) Bill 2024, introduced on 14 March 2024.
Recent criminal investigations into asbestos-contaminated mulch, and a general need to strengthen penalties and deterrence, prompted these changes.
The Bill includes the following increased penalties:
The Bill also grants the following powers to the EPA and the Land and Environment Court:
These amendments clearly signal an increased focus on environmental crime, and in particular, greater scrutiny on waste-related activities.
Whilst the EPA has always had the power to cast a wide net when investigating and prosecuting waste offences, the Bill specifically empowers the EPA to investigate the entire material/waste supply chain, and to order product recalls of potentially contaminated material on an urgent basis.
These sweeping powers make it even more important for businesses who may be on the receiving end of recycled or reprocessed materials to ensure the integrity of all generators and operators along the supply chain.
Publication
On 6 August 2025, the High Court handed down the decision of Helensburgh Coal Pty Ltd v Bartley [2025] HCA 29 (Helensburgh Coal Decision).
Publication
The shift in delivering renewable energy projects away from engaging a single contractor who takes full responsibility for the engineering, procurement, and construction aspects of a project (EPC contract model) to instead developers contracting directly with multiple specialised contractors for separate packages of work (split contract model) raises interesting issues concerning satisfying the principal contractor requirements under work health and safety (WHS) legislation.
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