AI skills are fast becoming a baseline hiring filter. UBS now requires 2027 grad and intern applicants to its banking and markets divisions to prove AI proficiency — one of the first major banks to explicitly demand it. Interviews test how candidates actually use AI to "improve outcomes and efficiency". Will law firms start to ask the same of their clerks? FT

⚖️ Employment: Employer Knauf Gypsum successfully refused a payroll officer's request to keep working from home every Monday and Friday to care for his two young kids. Commissioner Matheson found the employer had reasonable business grounds to refuse. The employer didn't just assume parenting and payroll don't mix. It pointed to a recent performance review rating the employee as only "partially meets expectations", plus a documented drop in accuracy and timeliness on the days he worked from home. That evidence let the Commission connect his caring duties to real performance risk in a role needing uninterrupted focus: FWC

⚖️ Corporate: The Takeovers Panel has clarified when drag-along rights in a company's constitution can breach Chapter 6's takeover rules, and drafting makes all the difference. In Ringers Western, a bonus share issue took one shareholder from 63% to almost 100%. But the drag-along right was conditioned on item 7 shareholder approval, so the Panel found no immediate breach. In Mobile Asset Holdings, the drag-along wasn't conditioned that way, letting majority shareholders force out minorities without following Chapter 6's process, so the Panel declared it unacceptable circumstances. Even conditional drafting doesn't always work — ASIC warned that item 7's voting exclusions might leave no one eligible to approve the mechanism at all: McCullough Robertson

⚖️ Regulatory: The Big 4 can't catch a break. ASIC Chair Sarah Court has confirmed the regulator has gathered 551 complaints about the big four accounting firms as part of its ongoing audit surveillance. At a parliamentary hearing, Court said ASIC's probe into KPMG's alleged misuse of confidential information will likely expand, with investigators now also examining possible director duty breaches and whether certain KPMG statements were false or misleading. ASIC has separately asked KPMG, Deloitte, EY and PwC to hand over details of internal complaints and whistleblower reports, though it's too early to say how many will result in formal action: Bloomberg

The ATO just declared war on Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Spotify and Netflix, ruling their cloud and streaming fees are royalties. It could mean billions in extra tax. The US Treasury isn't happy, arguing it breaches the bilateral tax treaty and contradicts the OECD Model Tax Convention: AFR

The Coalition wants vapes and nicotine pouches sold at regular retailers, not just pharmacies, if it wins the next election. Angus Taylor's plan pairs that with an 80% cut to tobacco excise. Labor isn't buying it — Tanya Plibersek reckons it'll cost lives, not curb the black market: TDA

🤝 Macquarie Asset Management has finally landed a slice of Secure Electronic Registries Victoria, snapping up a 50% stake from Aware Super for around $4bn, eight years after losing the original privatisation bid. Mallesons backed MAM, while Allens repped Aware: AFR

🙅 Ingenia Communities has knocked back Warburg Pincus' unsolicited $4.75-a-security takeover bid. Warburg wanted Ingenia to ditch its planned Peet Limited acquisition as a condition of the deal, but Ingenia is staying the course on Peet: Capital Brief

✈️ Jet Zero Australia, which turns agricultural waste into sustainable jet fuel, has raised $30m from Korean giant POSCO, joining existing backers Qantas and Airbus: AFR