Legal Aspects of International Trade and Enterprise

This report discusses the domestic and international laws applicable to Westpac Banking Corporation, including the Corporations Act 2001, Work Health and Safety Act, Taxation Law, Banking Regulation, and Competition and Consumer Act. It also explores the impact of international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol, Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement, China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, and ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area.

Running Head: BUSINESS AND CORPORATION LAW 0
Legal Aspects of International Trade and Enterprise
Westpac Banking Corporation
4/25/2019
HI5015
Student’s Name

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Executive Summary
Each organization, the law of that nation is applicable. In addition to domestic law, businesses
are also required to comply with international laws, wherever is applicable. For the preparation
of this report, Westpac Banking Corporation is selected. Domestic as well as international laws
applicable to this company will be discussed in the report in conjunction with its basic
information such as the location of headquarter and number of employees.

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Contents
Question 1........................................................................................................................................2
Question 2........................................................................................................................................2
Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)...........................................................................................................2
Work Health and Safety Act of 2011 3
Taxation Law 3
Banking Regulation 4
Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) 4
Question 3........................................................................................................................................5
Kyoto Protocol 6
The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 6
China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) 7
ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA) 7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Question 1
The company selected for the preparation of this assignment is Westpac Banking Corporation.
The company is commonly known as Westpac. The company was established in the year 1982
out of the merger of two of major banks namely Commercial bank of Australia and Bank of New
South Wales (Lee and Carter, 2012). The company is an Australian bank, which is active in the
financial service industry and having its headquarters in Sydney, Australia (Westpac.com.au,
2019). The company has its operations across the globe, nevertheless the same is mostly active in
Australia. In order to discuss the customer base of the company, this is to state that the same is
providing its services to more than 14 million people globally. In the year 2018, the company
had 35029 employees in Australia (Ibisworld.com.au, 2018).
Question 2
There are certain legislation frameworks in every country that governs a different kind of
business structures. These laws are there to ensure that a business is working according to the
standard requirements considering ethical and legal factors. In cases of companies, these
frameworks become more crucial as the same outlines duties of directors and officers of the
company and let the stakeholders know about their legal rights. Similar to any other country,
Australia also has many laws, which are applicable to local companies and affect their operations
by regulating them.
Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)

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This is the lead corporation law of Australia, which is applicable to Westpac. The legislation
affects the working of the company in many ways as it highlights the general as well as specific
duties of a director, rights of shareholders and other provisions for the working of the company
such as the appointment of auditors, audit, and liquidation and so on. As per the provisions of
this act, directors of an Australian company are required to act in the best interest of the company
considering the proper purpose (Lawhandbook.sa.gov.au, 2019). Further, they are not allowed to
misuse their position and information as well. Penalties are defined for the breach of such duties.
Further, in some of the sections penalties are there for the company also which affect the
financial status of the company in a negative manner. Directors and officers of the company have
to follow all the provisions of this act and are required to manage their decisions and actions
accordingly.
Work Health and Safety Act of 2011
As the name implies this act focuses on health and safety factor of employees. This is federal
government legislation that is applicable to all the organizations of Australia. The selected
company also has to comply with the provisions of this act and in this manner is required to
provide a safety-working environment to all of its employees who are working in Australia
(Safeworkaustralia.gov.au, 2019). This creates an additional cost of the company as in cases of
breach of this legislation company has to pay the fines and penalties. According to the provisions
of this act, the person conducting a business in Australia carries the duty of care towards its
employees and therefore is liable to consider the health and safety factor at the workplace.
Taxation Law
The selected company has to comply with the rules and regulations provided by the Australian
Tax authority. The total profits that the company earns from its operations in Australia are

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subject to the tax liability as per the legal requirement of the Australian Government. In the case
of an Australian company, a flat rate of tax is applicable which is 30%. In addition to this direct
tax, the indirect tax provisions are also there. As the company provides services, hence the same
is liable to pay indirect tax in the form of Goods and Service Tax (GST) on the amount of
services it provides during a particular financial year. The current rate of GST is 10% in
Australia (Ato.gov.au, 2019). It means the company has to pay 30% of profit as direct tax and
10% of the amount of services provided as indirect tax.
Banking Regulation
As mentioned above the company is engaged in providing financial services, as a bank and
therefore many of the banking regulations of Australia is applicable to the same. For instance,
the Banking Act 1959 (Cth) is there. The act provides what a bank can do and what are the
restrictions of the same. Westpac has to act according to this legislation. Australian Prudential
Regulation Australia is the authority, which oversees and govern the behavior of financial sector
companies in Australia. Westpac has to report this authority on various documents and reports as
required under subjective banking act. The Reserve bank of Australia also plays an important
role when it comes to the compliance and governance of Australian banks and financial
companies. Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 is there to
combat money laundering issues and financing of terrorism (Legislation.gov.au, 2019). Westpac
complies with the provisions of this legislation too. The company is required to prepare and keep
the record of those transaction that can be proved as a threat to the nation.
Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)
Westpac deal with many customers on a daily basis who transact with the bank. These people
have an interest in the affairs of the company and therefore the company is required to consider

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their interest while operating its business activities. Competition and Consumer Act of 2010 is
one of the significant laws in this direction. This law ensures that businesses are fair in their
dealings and are not adopting fraudulent practices. Two schedules are there under this act, one is
based on the competition law, and other provides the provisions related to the consumer. This act
prevents misuse of dominating position of the organizations in against of other small competitive
entities. The motive of this act to ensure that the businesses do consider the interest of other
organizations too as they play a crucial role in the growth of the economy. As mentioned above
the second schedule of the act is focused on consumer protections. This schedule ensures that an
organization is not involved in any practices that may mislead the consumers or may defeat the
interest of them. Westpac in its operation is required to comply with the provisions of both of
these schedules. It affects its operation, as the company needs to consider the interest of
consumer while doing the business transaction and while providing consumer guarantees.
Question 3
In the aforesaid part, the local legislation and laws of Australia have been discussed that are
applicable to Westpac being an Australian company. In addition to these laws, some other
international laws are also applicable to the company. Many conventions, treaties, and
conventions are there which attracts opportunities and risk for this business. These agreements
and treaties provide terms and conditions and affect the businesses are many ways. Further,
many countries have some agreements to other countries and therefore the companies over there
have to follow them. For instance, while working in Europe, an Australian company has to
follow all the treaties that have been developed between Australian and European government. In
the following section, international treaties and agreements are mentioned that are applicable to
Westpac and affect the business of the company.

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Kyoto Protocol
Firstly, this is to state that Australia is one of the members of the United Nation Association of
Australia. Further Australia signed the Kyoto Protocol in the year 2008 and therefore becomes
responsible to work as per the provided guidelines. Businesses of the nations are an important
part of its economy. Whenever a government signs an international or another treaty, it directly
affects business over there. Because of Kyoto Protocol adoption, Australian is required to reduce
the carbon emission by 5% below the 2000 level by the end of the year 2020 (Oup.com.au,
2018). In order to meet out the requirements of this protocol, the Australian Government
developed many rules, procedures, and policies that all the businesses are required to follow.
These policies affect Westpac as because of these policies, the organization has to act more
environmentally friendly and is required to adopt necessary measures of environment protection.
In addition to the Kyoto protocol, all the other treaties that Australia has entered into effect the
working of Westpac.
The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement
In 2004, Australia signed the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (Moens and Jones,
2013). The United States is another significant work market for Westpac as many of its
customers belong to there. The agreement came into effect in 2005. The agreement increased
business opportunities in both of these nations. Because of this agreement, Westpac been able to
ensure that its customers have good access to its services in the US and they is not liable to pay
substantial money which the US government was used to charge. In other words, this can be
stated that because of AUSFTA, Westpac got a good market in the US and now the same is able
to provide services over there without facing any substantial charges. In addition to this,
Australia and the US developed the double taxation agreement too. As per the provisions of this

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agreement, companies that are doing business in both of the countries are not required to pay tax
in both of the countries and in this manner the subjective agreement prevent the issues of double
taxation.
China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA)
ChaFTA is a bilateral Free Trade Agreement that has developed between the governments of
China and Australia and came into effect in 2015 (Picker, wang and Zhou, 2017). Many of the
customers of the company reside in Asian countries. Westpac always wanted to assure that its
customers must not face any financial difficulty while traveling around other countries. ChaFTA
helps Westpac in achieving this goal. After the development of the subjective agreement,
Westpac becomes more able to provide its services throughout China. As it is well known that
China is the largest nation of the world in terms of population and hence in this manner, ChaFTA
helps Westpac to target a broad market. Before this agreement, it was hard for Australian
companies to operate in China because of strict regulatory provisions. The mentioned free trade
agreement made the working of Westpac in china smooth up to a level.
ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA)
This agreement opened the door of companies incorporated in both of the nations to work in
another country. In January 2010 the agreement came into force and made the operations of
Australian company far easy in New Zealand (Dfat.gov.au, 2019). As Westpac, also operate in
New Zealand, the mentioned agreement affects this company. By the way, of this agreement,
governments reduce tariff and duty rates. The government ensures that the business that provides
services to New Zealand has to face very few legal requirements (like Westpac). In this manner,
Westpac is operating in New Zealand in an effective and efficient manner and this company does

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not have to do many legal formalities. It makes the practices easy and smooth. Now company
can bypass many of the tariffs and duties that were there before.

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References
Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006
Ato.gov.au. (2019) GST. [online] Available from: https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/GST/
[Accessed on 26/04/2019]
Banking Act 1959 (Cth)
Competition and Consumer Act 2010
Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)
Dfat.gov.au. (2019) ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA. [online] Available from:
https://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/in-force/aanzfta/Pages/asean-australia-new-zealand-free-trade-
agreement.aspx [Accessed on 26/04/2019]
Ibisworld.com.au. (2018) Westpac Banking Corporation - Premium Company Report Australia.
[Online] Available at:
https://www.ibisworld.com.au/australian-company-research-reports/financial-insurance-
services/westpac-banking-corporation-company.html [Accessed on 25/04/2019].
Lee, K., and Carter, S.(2012) Global Marketing Management. UK: OUP.
Legislation.gov.au. (2019) Anti
-Money Laundering and Counter
-Terrorism Financing Act 2006.
[Online] Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2006A00169 [Accessed on
25/04/2019].

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Moens, G., and Jones, R.(2013) International Trade and Business Law Review, Volume 10. Oxon:
Routledge.
Oup.com.au (2018) Australia’s International legal obligation. [online] Available from:
https://www.oup.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/58241/Chapter-24-Australias-international-
legal-obligations.pdf [Accessed on 26/04/2019]
Picker, C., Wang, H., and Zhou, W. (2017) The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement: A 21st-
Century Model. UK:Bloomsbury Publishing.
Safeworkaustralia.gov.au. (2019) Model WHS Laws. [Online] Available at:
https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/law-and-regulation/model-whs-laws [Accessed on
25/04/2019].
Westpac.com.au. (2019) Westpac in Australia. [online] Available from:
https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/global-locations/westpac-australia/ [Accessed on
26/04/2019]Lawhandbook.sa.gov.au. (2019) General Duties of Directors - Corporations Act
2001 (Cth). [online] Available from: https://lawhandbook.sa.gov.au/ch05s04s02.php [Accessed
on 26/04/2019]
Work Health and Safety Act of 2011 (Cth)