Reference no: EM133394591

Case Study: Natali is a business student with a major in accounting at Western Sydney University and lives with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Eqbal. Mr. Eqbal, Natalis' father, is a partner of Eqbal Robin Ashworth (ERA) which is an accounting firm specialising in information technology businesses.

Natali regularly shops from a superstore called North South Superstore based in the suburb she lives in. She is there at least once a week and sometimes more often if the specials are too good to ignore. As her birthday is approaching in the coming month, she decides to have a party in her house and invite her close friends. To prepare for this event, she starts to stock different kinds of food items. She needs some frozen scallops to make one of her special dishes before the party. Frozen scallops are usually kept on the top shelf of the refrigerator with other seafood items in the back end of the store. Since Natali is only 150 cm tall, she had to reach for the scallop packets. She held the door of the refrigerator open with her right hand and she reached up for the scallop packets with her left hand. After placing one packet in her trolley, she reached further back for another packet but unfortunately her hand hit a few broken bottles, causing her a nasty cut to her left hand. The constant bleeding from her hand caused her to faint. When she has been taken to the emergency department of the nearby hospital, the duty doctor has told that the cut has likely caused major damage to the nerves in her hand. The store was not sure how the broken bottles got there or how long they had been there. One sales assistant informs that recently an increased number of homeless people come to visit the store for help and sometimes hang around different parts of the store without much surveillance due to staff shortage in the store.

In a separate event, Mr. Eqbal also experiences a setback in his professional career. Nelson Pty Ltd (Nelson), which provides business process outsourcing (BPO) services to large companies, hires ERA to act as its accountants and to prepare its taxation returns. Nelson and ERA discuss the idea of Nelson's business expansion. ERA advises that Nelson's profit and loss statement reveals that Nelson made a substantial profit in the previous year and therefore, Nelson could expand and raise a loan from a bank to fund the expansion. Unfortunately, ERA made a mistake in preparing Nelson's profit and loss statement. The statement understated expenses by $100,000 and overstated trading stock by $60,000. The financial statements were sent to Nelson by email. Believing all the information in the financial statements is accurate, Nelson decides to expand the business and consults the Bank of New South Wales for a loan to fund the expansion. The bank requests a copy of the financial statements and Nelson forwards the document. On the basis of the information in the financial statements, the bank lends $150,000 to Nelson. The expansion is unsuccessful, and Nelson's business fails. Nelson claims that it would not have expanded if it had known that the financial statements are not correct.The Bank of New South Wales claims that it would not have lent $150,000 if it had known the true financial situation of Nelson.

Questions: Answer the following questions:

1. Advise Natali whether North South Superstore is liable in negligence for her injury by referring to relevant case law and statutory provisions.

2. Explain whether ERA owes a duty of care to Nelson and/or the Bank of New South Wales and whether they breach their duty of care with reference to relevant case law and statutory provisions.