New Ministerial determination excludes New Zealand companies from the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic) – Part II

Further to yesterday's post, Australian listed companies and their subsidiaries are excluded from the Act (see s 4(2)(c) of the RLA).

This is consistent with the purpose of the RLA to be a form of consumer protection for small businesses.

Section 4(2)(d) of the RLA states that leases of the following premises are not retail premises for the purposes of that Act (emphasis added):

(d) premises the tenant of which is—

(i) a body corporate whose securities are listed on a stock exchange, outside Australia and the external territories, that is a member of the World Federation of Exchanges; or

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(ii) a subsidiary (as defined in section 9 of the Corporations Act) of such a body corporate;

Again, this is designed to limit the operation of the RLA to small businesses.

However, it appears that New Zealand is not a member of the World Federation of Exchanges (see here - however, some sites on the web suggest the contrary, eg here). This means that a premises the tenant of which is a New Zealand listed company or its subsidiary may attract the protection of the Act, which is not consistent with the intention of the RLA to protect small businesses only. The latest Ministerial determination appears to be directed towards regularising this anomaly.

Thanks to Jamie Bedelis for his assistance with the contents of this post.