What we do at Cove

Strategic Commercial Litigation

Commercial Litigation

Cove Legal is a specialist commercial litigation law firm. We have assisted clients with legal disputes that span a very wide range of industry sectors and that involve proceedings issued in the Supreme Court, Federal Court, District Court, Magistrates Court, State Administrative Tribunal, Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Coroner's Court and Warden's Court. We handle litigation, arbitrations, adjudications and mediations.

We are experts at assessing your dispute and providing strategic advice on how to pursue or respond to the legal and commercial drivers.  We strongly believe in legal dispute services being cost effective: there has to be a cost/benefit analysis for each and every stage.  It is a feature that we believe defines the way we provide litigation support to our clients.

Tax Disputes and Insolvency

Cove Legal are very much experts in assisting our clients with contentious tax matters and insolvency proceedings.

We represent clients in Court winding up applications and bankruptcy petitions and provide strategic advice on ATO payment plans and all other aspects of ATO debt recovery action (such as director penalty notices, garnishee notices, freezing orders, default assessments, audit requests and ATO criminal prosecutions).

We also advise on breaches of director duties (acting for or against directors) and other insolvency related actions such as preference claims. Principal Roger Blow acted extensively for the ATO in Perth for over 5 years and has a deep technical and strategic understanding of tax related litigation. 

Media Law and IT

We are one of Perth’s most respected firms in the media law space.  Principal Roger Blow is recognised as a media law expert, particularly in liability arising from the use of social media.  He has represented tier one national political figures in defamation disputes and obtained injunctions in the Supreme Court of Western Australia relating to derogatory Facebook publications.

Media law is now dominated by the use of technology and we are regularly instructed to assist clients with investigations and Court proceedings relating to abusive/defamatory communications, online bullying, the illegal accessing of confidential data, the theft of business sensitive information and the publication of fake and malicious online reviews. We work closely with some of Perth’s leading IT investigators and forensic specialists to gather the evidence necessary to protect client interests and take swift and decisive action where online events need to be urgently addressed.

Roger also provides regular commentary on media law issues to Channel 10, the West Australian, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC and various other mainstream media.  He is recognised as a media law expert on expertguide.com.

We assist clients with various IT legal needs, from disputes over the performance of bespoke software procurement agreements to the development of terms and conditions and privacy statements for mobile phone applications.

Agriculture

We have represented farmers and peak farming organisations in general agriculture disputes as well as more complex litigation relating to land access agreements and compensation claims arising from oil and gas operations conducted on farmland. 

Principal Roger Blow and other Cove Legal staff have farming within their families and understand the pressures involved with this sector.  Roger has also provided advice to political action groups and peak industry bodies regarding oil and gas compensation claims.

Health and Education

Cove has a long list of clients in the health sector: those providing health care as contractors to the government; home doctor services; dentist clinics and a wide range of Cosmetic Medical and Surgical service providers. We have assisted our health sector clients with everything from shareholder disputes and AHPRA challenges concerning medical advertising, to the removal of false and defamatory online reviews.  We have also acted on patient disputes and the enforcement of restrictive covenants within employee or sub-contractor agreements.

In the education sector, we have assisted clients with Supreme Court injunctive proceedings removing social media attacks from competitors, as well as assisting with inquiries and demands originating from the industry regulator, ASQA.  The educational sector is a major growth area for Western Australia and Cove Legal has developed a good working knowledge on the regulatory aspects and the interplay with other Government bodies such as the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.