A leading national law firm.
Linkedin

Jonathan Nguyen

Partner

Melbourne

With over 25 years’ experience advising employers, employees and Unions on employment and industrial matters, Jonathan has developed a unique and broad insight into this area of the law which has enabled him to provide effective legal and practical solutions for clients.

Jonathan is well-known for helping clients to understand and navigate complex and challenging employment and industrial relations issues. He works closely with clients to better understand their business and commercial objectives, in order to provide them with innovative and strategic legal solutions. Jonathan enjoys working collaboratively with clients to assist them with achieving the outcome that they seek.

Jonathan has expertise in advising clients on complex cross-jurisdictional employment and industrial relations issues, having acted for a number of large multinational companies including Linde, Evolution Mining, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines. He has also acted for a number of large and medium local businesses in banking, financial services, manufacturing, aged care and retail.

  • +61 3 9605 0973

Memberships, Accreditation and Activities

  • Bachelor of Laws – LLB, Monash University 1999
  • Bachelor of Science (Majoring in Immunology), Monash University 1999.

Expertise

Jonathan’s expertise includes:

  • Managing employee poor performance, misconduct and separation
  • Managing long-term injured and ill employees and absenteeism
  • Enforcing and defending restraint of trade claims
  • Employee fraud investigations and prosecuting fraud claims against employees
  • Defending underpayment claims by Unions and employees
  • Defending flexible work arrangement claims by employees
  • Defending prosecutions by the Fair Work Ombudsman
  • Defending claims for breaches of Awards and Enterprise Agreements
  • Defending sham contractor claims by Unions, employees and the ATO
  • Strategic advice on Enterprise Agreement coverage and bargaining
  • Advising on the integration of cross-jurisdictional workplace policies and procedures
  • Application of the Montreal Convention to passenger complaints in VCAT and in Australian Courts
  • Advising on employment and industrial relations aspects of mergers and acquisitions, including making applications to the Fair Work Commission to prevent the transmission of Enterprise Agreements
  • Workforce restructures and implementing redundancies
  • Advising on industrial action including urgent applications to the Courts and the Fair Work Commission to stop industrial action.

Recent Matters

  • Advising a financial services company on a major acquisition of a State Government business, including making an application to the Fair Work Commission for an order to prevent the State Enterprise Agreement from transferring with the transferring employees and successfully obtaining this order
  • Conducting employment and industrial relations compliance reviews for clients in the manufacturing and financial services sectors
  • Advising clients on terminations of employment involving serious breaches of workplace health and safety laws by employees, including successfully defending unfair dismissal and breach of general protections claims made by employees
  • Investigating employee and contractor fraudulent conduct and implementing disciplinary action against a number of employees and contractors
  • Advising clients on termination of employment of long-term ill and injured employees, including defending discrimination and breach of general protections claims
  • Successfully defending an employee in relation to urgent legal proceedings issued by the employee’s former employer in the Federal Court of Australia for breach of restraint of trade
  • Defending complaints made to the Australian Human Rights Commission in relation to claims of sex and disability discrimination
  • Advising clients on compliance with the new positive duty to prevent sexual harassment and sex discrimination, including responding to audits and inquiries by the Australian Human Rights Commission
  • Advising clients on identifying and rectifying underpayments of Award and Enterprise Agreement entitlements.

Memberships, Accreditation & Activities

  • Bachelor of Laws – LLB, Monash University 1999
  • Bachelor of Science (Majoring in Immunology), Monash University 1999.