Understand Your Rights. Solve Your Legal Problems
"Death benefit" is a term that is associated with life insurance. In Australia, It is a part of every individual’s superannuation policy and comes into effect only when he or she dies before receiving the benefits of this policy. All superannuation funds in Australia are required by law to include this type of insurance. The death of a loved one in the family can be emotionally and also financially draining if he or she was the main breadwinner in the family. This article aims to make clear the concept of the death benefit and who can claim it.
If you are the spouse, a dependent child, or a parent of the deceased in your family, it will likely be a period of grief full of financial and emotional stress for you. If you were partially or fully dependent upon the deceased for financial support, you are eligible to make a death benefits claim. The fund has to pay death benefits along with the lump sum that was assured to the dependent of the deceased contributing to the super. If you are a family member who was dependent upon the deceased, you are eligible to claim the death benefits. No matter what superannuation policy the deceased was contributing to, you can rest assured that it must have death benefits for their dependents. You can take the help of death benefits lawyers to get this money from the operators of the fund. In most cases, these benefits run into thousands of dollars.
In many cases of the death of the main breadwinner of the family, the government of Australia comes forward to help the bereaved family without even requesting help. This help is provided through Services Australia, an executive agency responsible for looking after the health and welfare of the Australian people. Besides temporary exemptions in many schemes, Services Australia also gives away the death benefits to the bereaved family. The amount of money given is dependent upon the following factors:
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Death benefits under federal laws can only be given to a deceased person’s dependents. In case of no dependent, they are given to a legal personal representative (LPR). A non-dependent can receive death benefits only through an LPR. In such a scenario, it becomes important to know who is considered a dependent in case of deciding who is going to be the recipient of the death benefits:
If you are a dependent of the deceased in your family, you must take timely action to receive death benefits. If you are not approached by services Australia, you need to contact a qualified death benefits lawyer to get some monetary help through the super of the deceased. Claiming an experienced lawyer is the best way of receiving death benefits.
India’s technology ministry has publicly called on the Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp to withdraw previously announced alterations to its privacy policy.
In an email to WhatsApp head Will Cathcart dated 18 January, the ministry said the revised terms of the app’s privacy agreement “raise grave concerns regarding the implications for the choice and autonomy of Indian citizens”.
“Therefore, you are called upon to withdraw the proposed changes.”
WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy, which gained widespread media attention earlier this month, clarified that its users’ data could be shared with parent company Facebook. Shared data could include phone numbers, IP addresses, device locations and several other pieces of identifying information.
However, UK and EU users – who are covered by GDPR – will not have their data transferred to Facebook, which is US-based.
This Europe-exclusive protection was also raised in the technology ministry’s letter. “This differential and discriminatory treatment of Indian and European users is attracting serious criticism and betrays a lack of respect for the rights and interest of Indian citizens who form a substantial portion of WhatsApp’s user base,” the ministry wrote.
India is WhatsApp’s biggest market, with 400 million users, and its vocal criticism of the platform’s new policy played a role in its decision to delay the policy launch to May from February.
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In 2020, Facebook invested $5.7 billion in the digital unit of Indian conglomerate Reliance in a move largely aimed at drawing India’s traditional shop owners to use digital payments through WhatsApp. The platform has further plans to expand in the country’s digital payments space, including by selling health insurance via partners.
“We wish to reinforce that this update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said on Tuesday. “Our aim is to provide transparency and new options available to engage with businesses so they can serve their customers and grow.”
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order banning transactions eight Chinese-owned apps, citing cybersecurity concerns.
The apps affected by the order are Ant Group’s Alipay, CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, WeChat Pay and WPS Office. The ban will go into effect in 45 days, after Trump’s term as president has ended.
“By accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information,” the order reads, adding that this data collection would enable China to “track the locations of federal employees and contractors, and build dossiers of personal information”.
In addition to banning transactions using the named apps, the order also bans transactions with “persons that develop or control” the apps.
The order is reminiscent of previous executive orders that Trump levied against prominent Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok in 2020. Both orders have been blocked by federal courts, with US users still able to download and use the targeted apps.
As an unexpected parting shot against China, the order is likely to further heighten tensions between the US and Chinese governments. In a statement on Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying called the move an example of US “bullying” and accused the Trump administration of “stretching the concept of national security.”
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Alipay, a mobile payments app with more than 1 billion users, and most of the other named apps did not comment on the executive order. Kingsoft, developers of WPS Office, said in a statement published by state media that it did not expect the order to substantially impact its business in the short term.
Aman Johal, Lawyer and Director of Your Lawyers, looks back at the most significant data breaches of 2020 and their fallout.
The past year has profoundly accelerated the growth in digital dependence. Recurring lockdowns have pushed employees to work from home, students to learn online, and consumers to turn to eCommerce.
Global internet bandwidth surged 35%, the largest one-year increase since 2013, and with this online migration came a correlating increase in cyber threats. Cyberattacks have increased by 400% since the beginning of the pandemic, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) revealed that 25% of all cyberattacks in 2020 were linked to the pandemic.
The threat has reached a critical level, with the NCSC launching its Cyber Aware campaign to inform businesses and consumers about cybersecurity risks and how to prepare for cyberattacks should they occur.
One cyberattack can create a domino effect of risks for victims. Stolen personal information can be used by hackers in a number of ways, including to access bank accounts, open new accounts and take out loans in the victims’ names. They could also make fraudulent purchases, transfer money from compromised accounts, or use the data to contact victims and dupe them into handing over access to accounts or money directly.
In mid-January, it was revealed that Marriott International had experienced its second substantial data breach, just two years after the huge previous one was revealed. The incident is understood to have affected 5.2 million guests when hackers procured the login credentials of two staff members and used the credentials to access guest details, including names, dates of birth, phone numbers, and loyalty account numbers.
One cyberattack can create a domino effect of risks for victims.
easyJet suffered a monumental data breach that was revealed in the springtime. In what was described as a “highly sophisticated cyber-attack”, the personal details of some 9 million customers were exposed, with the card details of 2,208 individuals reportedly compromised. Affected individuals were notified in May.
Following its surge in popularity as the world entered into lockdowns, users of the video platform Zoom also experienced cyberattacks. It is understood that some 500,000 compromised passwords were put up for sale on the dark web at a time when the app had reached 300 million active monthly users. Hackers were able to carry out the cyberattacks by collecting databases of usernames and passwords from crime forums, which themselves had been obtained in data breaches reportedly dating back to 2013. It was not a case of information being stolen from Zoom databases directly, but a case of data harvested from other breaches being used to target Zoom users.
The targeting of Zoom users is a stark reminder of the long-term repercussions of cyber theft, and why it is important to avoid using the same login credentials across multiple platforms, to employ strong passwords, and to respond to data breaches proactively.
More recently, Google suffered a significant cyberattack in December. It is an impressive feat to be able to hack Google, and the quantity of data which may have been compromised remains unknown at this time. Specialists believe that it is highly likely that a State actor is behind the attack. With increasingly sophisticated attacks and increasingly high stakes, it is clear that 2021 needs to be a turning point with regard to cybersecurity.
The frequency of data breaches, exemplified above, suggests the advent of corporate “breach fatigue”, where leadership understands the cybersecurity risks at hand, but passively accept that an incident is inevitable. Marriott, as a two-time offender of serious data breaches, perhaps highlights this apparent nonchalance.
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However, an activist watchdog may encourage companies to step up to their duties of data protection. The ICO has faced criticism over its dispensing of fines, as exemplified by Marriott’s 2018 incident, for which it was fined just £18.4 million instead of the original intention of a £99 million fine. The British Airways fine is another case in point: they were issued with a £20 million fine in October instead of the original intention to fine in the sum of £183 million. Both represent significant reductions, and the concern is that these huge climb-downs could prevent fines from having the dissuasive effect that they are designed to produce.
Beyond the fines, organisations that breach the GDPR may also face significant compensation pay-outs. BA alone could be facing pay-outs that total up to £3 billion on the basis of a £6,000 average claim for each of the circa 500,000 victims.
Data breach compensation amounts should reflect the significant impact on victims, and can account for financial, emotional and psychological damage. Action Fraud, the UK’s National Fraud and Cybercrime Reporting Centre, reported that cyber scams in 2020 resulted in losses of £16.6 million during the first lockdown alone. It is important for all interest groups that the serious cybersecurity lapses of 2020 are not replicated in the future.
Public confidence in cyber resilience needs to be improved after 2020 being yet another year of significant data breaches. It is critical that businesses and consumers focus on high standards of cybersecurity over the course of the year to come.
Australia’s antitrust regulator on Tuesday blocked an undertaking from Google parent Alphabet Inc that sought to appease its concerns over Google’s planned $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) expressed scepticism towards the Fitbit deal in June, warning that Google’s purchase of the wearables and fitness company would give it access to a significant amount of customers’ data, potentially damaging competition in health and online advertising markets.
Under its proposed undertaking, Google offered to not make use of certain user data collected through Fitbit and Google wearables for advertising purposes for 10 years, with the possibility of extension if the ACCC saw fit. It also said it would provide third parties with access to certain user data collected through the devices for 10 years, as well as maintain support for interoperability with Android devices for the same period.
However, the ACCC rejected the undertaking, stating that it continued to have concerns about the potential for Fitbit’s non-Apple rivals to be “squeezed out” of the wearables market due to their devices’ existing reliance on Google services. The regulator also noted that several other competition authorities, such as the US Department of Justice, had not yet made a decision on the viability of the deal.
“While we are aware that the European Commission recently accepted a similar undertaking from Google, we are not satisfied that a long-term behavioural undertaking of this type in such a complex and dynamic industry could be effectively monitored and enforced in Australia,” said ACCC Chair Rod Sims in a statement.
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Google has faced legal challenges from the Australian government on a number of key issues, including a proposed law that would force Google and Facebook to pay for news on their platforms sourced from local media outlets. If the law is adopted, Australia will become the first country in the world to impose such a measure.
The ACCC said it would continue its investigation, setting 25 March 2021 as a new decision date.
Facebook will shift its entire UK user base into user agreements with its corporate headquarters in California, ending its current relationship with Facebook’s Irish unit and placing them out of reach of European privacy laws.
The move was initially reported by sources speaking with Reuters, with Facebook later confirming the details.
“Like other companies, Facebook has had to make changes to respond to Brexit and will be transferring legal responsibilities and obligations for UK users from Facebook Ireland to Facebook Inc,” the company’s UK arm said. “There will be no change to the privacy controls or the services Facebook offers to people in the UK.”
UK users will continue to be subject to UK privacy law, which currently mirrors the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), though it will no longer be governed by Facebook’s office in Dublin. The move comes on the heels of the EU’s announcement of stricter regulations for tech “gatekeepers” and how they handle data.
EU privacy law is currently among the world’s strictest, giving users a greater degree of control over what how much of their data they allow companies to access. US law favours the platforms themselves to a greater extent, with the 2018 US Cloud Act having made it easier for the US government to share companies’ data with UK law enforcement.
While the US government has recently launched antitrust lawsuits against big tech companies, lobbyists in the industry expect that incoming tech regulations will be more favourable to tech giants than those currently levied by the UK and EU.
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The UK is also introducing new measures calling for heavy fines on social media platforms that fail to adequately curb harmful content, with the potential to block such platforms from being accessed in the UK if they refuse to comply.
The European Union is preparing to unveil a landmark pair of laws on Tuesday that will “overhaul” the digital market and the way tech giants can operate.
The Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act outline specific regulations seeking to rein in the power of online “gatekeepers” upon whose platforms thousands of companies and millions of EU citizens rely. They also represent the biggest revision of laws governing online competition in 20 years, with a focus on breaking up monopolies and making platforms responsible for the content they host.
Commissioners Margrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton will present the rules on Tuesday. "Our rules on digital services in Europe - the most coveted single market in the world - date back to 2000. Most online platforms hardly existed back then," the pair wrote in a joint op-ed for The Irish Times on Sunday.
"We need to update our toolbox and make sure that our rules and principles are respected everywhere. Online as well as offline."
Under the draft laws, tech firms could be fined 6-10% of their annual turnover for violating competition rules, with repeated violators potentially being banned from the EU altogether. Especially large firms with tens of millions of users would be designated as internet “gatekeepers”, making them subject to additional regulations.
The laws will also forbid companies from favouring their own services, a monopolistic practice that has been at the centre of antitrust suits concerning Google and other online giants such as Amazon.
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Further measures outlined by the draft laws include a mandate for companies to give EU regulators details of political advertisers on their platforms and the parameters their algorithms use to suggest and rank information. Companies will also be expected to inform the EU in advance of any planned mergers or acquisitions.
The draft legislation will be announced later today, with a final draft expected in the coming months.
Claire Lehr, Partner at EIP, examines the F1 racer's legal battle and what it demonstrates about IP law in Europe.
It was announced last month that Lewis Hamilton had lost his three-year trademark battle with Hamilton International AG, the Swiss watchmakers. The Formula One driver’s intellectual property firm 44IP Limited had claimed that Hamilton International registered the name HAMILTON in bad faith and to prevent competition. These claims were dismissed by the Board of Appeal at the EUIPO, which concluded Lewis Hamilton had no “natural right” to protect his “common” surname. The case raised a number of interesting points.
The HAMILTON case contrasts with Lionel Messi’s nine-year trademark battle for his surname, MESSI. Unlike in the Hamilton case, the European Court of Justice held Messi could register his surname for, inter alia, sportswear. This upheld a 2018 decision by the General Court, which ruled that Messi’s reputation as “a well-known public figure who can be seen on television and who is regularly discussed on television or on the radio”.
There is no doubt that Lewis Hamilton also falls in to the “well-known public figure” category. But generally, the footballer is referred to as Messi, not Lionel Messi, whereas the racing driver is better known by his full name, Lewis Hamilton, not Hamilton.
Would it have made a difference in the present case? It’s possible, but unlikely, since crucial to the case was that Hamilton International had been using the mark HAMILTON on watches since 1892, decades before the birth of the racing driver, which was pointed out by its legal team.
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Hamilton International opposed the EU trade mark application for LEWIS HAMILTON filed by 44IP in Classes 14 and 35. As part of an ill-fated strategy to obtain leverage and overcome the opposition, 44IP filed invalidation proceedings in 2018 against Hamilton International’s earlier EU right for HAMILTON, claiming, amongst other things, that the mark had been filed in bad faith. This was dismissed at first instance and upheld by the Board of Appeal, which noted that the bad faith claim had “no factual basis from the outset”.
The Board of Appeal also commented that Hamilton International’s expansion into other categories was “legitimate and completely within normal marketing strategy” for a portfolio to be updated. The strategy had been questioned by 44IP. The Board of Appeal pointed out it was not up to third parties to comment on others’ marketing strategies.
In terms of next steps, it is open to 44IP to appeal the decision at the General Court. But is it likely to do so? It would seem unlikely. The Board of Appeal has held that Lewis Hamilton’s surname is not instantly recognisable, stating that it is “rather common surname” in English speaking territories and that no individual has a “natural right” to have their name registered if it infringes others’ rights. If 44IP wants to brand goods in Class 14 with LEWIS HAMILTON, it may want to consider the Class 14 goods from a 2006 (expired) registration for LEWIS HAMILTON, being “ornamental motor vehicles and safety helmets made from precious metals and their alloys or coated therewith” – a specification “on track” with Formula One.
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in a 12-year legal dispute over a collection of medieval art sold by Jewish art dealers to the Nazis in 1935 in a case that legal professionals say will have far-reaching consequences for international restitution battles and their ability to be heard in US courts.
The plaintiffs in the case are descendants of two of the four Jewish dealers who bought the 42-artefact Guelph Treasure in 1929 for 7.5 million Reichsmark. The plaintiffs claim that the consortium was coerced into selling the artefacts five years later at a reduced price of 4.25 million Reichsmark as part of the Nazi campaign to strip Germany’s Jewish population of their possessions.
They now demand the return of the treasure, which they value at around $260 million.
The oral arguments will concern whether the plaintiffs can sue in US courts to retrieve the artefacts from the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which technically owns the Guelph Treasure. The Foundation says that it must adhere to US government principles on art confiscated by the Nazis, under which it has restituted over 2,000 books and 350 pieces of art since 1998. However, it holds that the 1935 sale of the Guelph Treasure to the German state was the result of tough but lawful negotiations.
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“The key question we ask is whether a work in our collection was withdrawn from its previous owner as a result of persecution,” said Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in a statement to the Guardian. In the case of the Guelph Treasure, he said: “Neither was the sale forced, nor was the sale price unfair.”
The Foundation appealed the case to the SCOTUS after two lower courts found in favour of the plaintiffs. Some legal observers expect that the court will rule that the case is a matter for the German judiciary – and if it does not, that many more international disputes could be tried before US courts in future.
“It would let foreigners use US courts to sue their own nations for alleged human rights or law-of-war violations that happened in those foreign countries,” suggested Jonathan Freiman of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
The US subsidiary of Dutch energy and commodities trading company Vitol Group has agreed to pay $163 million to resolve probes by the US and Brazilian governments into allegations that it paid bribes to further its oil trading business.
The firm agreed to enter a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with the US and a related deal with the Brazilian government, under which it admitted guilt and agreed to make improvements to its internal reporting and compliance functions.
Vitol will pay the Department of Justice (DOJ) a $135 million criminal penalty to resolve the probes, with Brazilian authorities to receive $45 million from this sum. Vitol will also return $12.7 million in ill-gotten gains to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), along with $16 million in fines.
"We understand the seriousness of this matter and are pleased it has been resolved,” Vitol CEO Russell Hardy said in a statement, adding that the company had cooperated extensively throughout the process. “We will continue to enhance our procedures and controls in line with best practice.”
Prosecutors alleged that Vitol had paid bribes to government officials in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico in order to win lucrative business contracts and gain other competitive advantages. Prosecutors also claimed that Vitol had paid over $13 million in bribes to staff of Petróleo Brasileiro – the Brazilian state-owned petroleum company more widely known as Petrobras – in return for market intelligence, including confidential pricing information, internal forecasts and details on bids that the company had received from Vitol’s competitors.
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Vitol paid bribes to at least four Petrobras officials between 2005 and 2014, according to the DOJ, using shell companies and code names like “Batman”, “Dolphin” and “Tiger” to communicate with its co-conspirators.
Brian Rabbitt, Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, said in a statement that the coordinated resolution with Brazil “underscores the department’s resolve to hold companies accountable for their crimes while, at the same time, avoiding unnecessarily duplicative penalties.”
Vitol is the world’s largest independent oil trader, shipping around 8 million barrels of oil per day.
