Kyle and Jackie legal diagnosis: Does ARN have a case to terminate?
Lawyers consulted by Mumbrella on ARN’s attempt to terminate its contract with Kyle Sandilands say it’s not obvious the shock jock is guilty of “serious misconduct”. Because the case doesn’t seem to fall into definitions of workplace bullying, it is likely ARN’s claim is that Sandilands has instead breached his services agreement.
“One contention that Kyle Sandilands could put forward is that there was no breach. Because it wasn’t premeditated. It wasn’t misconduct that he planned.”
The dream is over: Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson in 2001
The Kyle and Jackie O show is no more, with Jackie Henderson giving notice on Tuesday that she “cannot continue to work” with Kyle Sandilands, and ARN therefore terminating its agreement with her umbrella company Henderson Media.
The most shocking revelation from Tuesday evening’s ASX filing is that ARN is also looking to terminate Sandilands’ ten-year, $100m contract due to an alleged breach of the services agreement, and has pulled him off air, “effective immediately”.
ARN told the market it has provided written notice to Sandilands and his contracting entity Quasar Media Services “stating that it considers that Mr Sandilands’ behaviour during the show on 20 February 2026 is an act of serious misconduct which is in breach of ARN’s services agreement with Quasar Media.”
ARN has given Sandilands 14 days to “remedy this breach”, with failure to do so “resulting in ARN terminating the services agreement … and in that event Mr Sandilands will cease to present the Kyle and Jackie O show.”
It’s a hard line to take, but what are the legal ramifications of all this? Will Sandilands be forced to forfeit close to $90m and a plum radio role, and is ARN’s path to termination even a legally sound one?
Victoria-Jane Otavski is a commercial litigator for Blackbay Lawyers, and an expert in commercial law, employment law, defamation law, and regulatory law. She tells Mumbrella that whether or not ARN has a solid legal case is down to the terms of the services agreement.
“Usually agreements of that type will have provisions which regulate the manner in which it can be terminated,” she says.
“Now, what ARN has done is it’s provided written notice to Kyle Sandilands and Quasar Media Services, which is presumably his contracting entity, requiring him to remedy a breach. So, what that is indicative of is, basically, that the termination provisions enabling a summary termination — meaning an immediate one — haven’t been enlivened here.”
Otavski says this course of action suggests Sandilands’ actions didn’t justify an immediate termination. Instead, ARN has exercised its right to issue a notice to remedy the breach within 14 days, on threat of termination.
“Now, whether or not the breach is capable of remedy is another question, but say, for instance, under the terms of the services agreement, it requires both Kyle and Jackie to continue to work together — they need to be an available duo — now that Jackie has made it quite public that she is not coming back, then effectively that breach would be very difficult to remedy … and thereby bring about the termination.
“But, whether or not that’s lawful and a step that is available to ARN will turn on the terms of the services agreement.”
Victoria-Jane Otavski is managing partner at Blackbay Lawyers
Stephen von Muenster, partner at Von Muenster Legal, tells Mumbrella that Sandilands’ behaviour is unlikely to be legally classified as workplace bullying.
“ARN has a strong legal obligation to ensure a safe workplace, that there’s no workplace bullying happening. And workplace bullying can happen where there’s repeated unjustifiable, unreasonable behaviour by one person or a group of people. They have a duty to ensure that it’s a safe workplace and there’s no bullying, and psychosocial hazards don’t exist.
“So, obviously ARN has to be seen to be ensuring that there’s no bullying or harassment. Again, though, to be unsafe and to be bullying, it’s got to be a systemic thing. And arguably, these guys have gotten along pretty well over many, many years, right? They’re a team. This is an incident that happened. It’s almost like a one-off thing.”
He says ARN stating an actual date for the “act of serious misconduct” suggests they aren’t pursuing a bullying claim.
“They give a date for the behaviour,” von Muenster says. “The reason they’ve done that is because they’re cutting off that this is something that he’s been doing to her on a sustained or repeated basis in the background. They’re cutting off a bullying thing, saying, ‘this is a one-off thing.’
“Yes, there’s a duty for workplace bullying and there’s workplace health and safety. But, I don’t think it’s falling into that territory. So where we’re landing is the whole thing will be governed by his contract.”
Like Otavski, von Muenster is keen to stress he hasn’t seen the contract and that he is giving a view from experience in other high-level executive independent contract agreements.
“There would be all sorts of obligations on either side,” he continues. “There’ll be two critical clauses. One will be to ensure either party doesn’t bring the other into serious disrepute that affects their reputation. You often see those in talent agreements. I’m pretty confident that you’d see something like that there, but that’s not being mentioned here at the moment.
“This is to do with serious misconduct. And serious misconduct is a ground of termination that generally allows immediate termination without notice. So then it comes down to this question. What would be the wording of the serious misconduct provision? And what threshold actually would need to be reached for there to be serious misconduct?
Stephen von Muenster, partner at Von Muenster Legal
“Now, serious misconduct is something that’s really, really serious. It has a presumption, sometimes, of premeditation, of a deliberate course of action that was deservedly designed to achieve an ends, which is perhaps unlawful or against the interests of ARN or something like that.”
This case, von Muenster feels, seems to fall short of serious misconduct.
“It seems to be something that started off as banter,” he says. “It was designed, I think, initially, for entertainment reasons. And then it spiralled a little bit out of control and became personal. And then, Jackie O took it on personally, and got very, very upset by it. And then she tried to counter against him — and there it is.”
Otavski agrees with this.
“The part that I really question is that, obviously, it was a disagreement between Kyle and Jackie, and he’s called out some of Jackie’s behaviour, but to me, on its face, it wouldn’t immediately seem to amount to serious misconduct — particularly when you consider previous content and remarks of Kyle,” she says.
“This doesn’t seem, on the scale of historical commentary, to be the worst of it. So it’s curious as to why this is being classified as serious misconduct. There’s a few questions around it.”
Von Muenster also believes Sandilands’ reputation works in his favour.
“The big point for me is, when you work with a shock jock, and that is how you’re making money — working with a shock jock like Kyle Sandilands — you shouldn’t be shocked when you get shocked. Right? You’re working with a shock jock. Don’t get shocked when you get shocked. So, whether he’s shocking someone else or whether he’s shocking his co-host, that is the terrain that you’re in.
“One contention that Kyle Sandilands could put forward is that there was no breach. Because it wasn’t premeditated. It wasn’t misconduct that he planned. It wasn’t set out that way.
“He could argue: ‘I’m a shock jock. That’s what I do. I’m trying to make the audiences get shocked, and that’s what they come to me for. And Jackie O knows that’. I get a sense that you’d have difficulty saying that there has been a breach of the services agreement if the serious misconduct clause is like an orthodox one. But it’s subject to what the contract actually says.
“I just don’t know if it would reach the level of termination ability under a contract.”
There’s also the $100m question of whether Sandilands will be owed any compensation. Otavski says, if there is a justified termination in advance of the contract playing out, it usually does mean that the balance of the term isn’t paid out.
Of course, it needs to be justified.
Kyle and Jackie O in happier times
“I think, having regard to the nature of the conduct between Kyle and Jackie, and previous remarks of Kyle arguably being far more controversial, perhaps it’s a matter of Kyle arguing whether or not what transpired [on February 20] with Jackie actually amounts to serious misconduct,” she says.
“And, if that’s something that’s capable of being disputed, then it might be the subject of negotiations. And if that doesn’t result in a concluded agreement, it might be something that is litigated.”
Otavski says most matters of this nature are usually settled out of court.
“Once the proceedings are afforded and parties recognise it’s a long, drawn-out, expensive process, most matters do resolve. But that will also come down to the attitude of the parties and how entrenched they are in their respective positions.”
Von Muenster doesn’t think ARN will let it go that far.
“Let’s argue that the service agreements been breached,” he says.
“They’ve given him a get-out-of-jail-free card because they’ve given him 14 days to remedy the breach. In these circumstances, what is a remedy of a breach? If he remedies the breach, then it’s no longer a breach. They’ve just given him notice of 14 days to cure the breach.
“How do you cure a breach when a shock jock upset his co-host in an unpremeditated way about stargazing? He wasn’t overly bad. I would suggest that he would probably be able to remedy that breach simply by acknowledging that he probably went a bit far, apologising, giving her a private call — which I think he’s already tried to do — and letting everyone know that. And then he’s remedied the breach. That’s it.
“So, that’s telling me ARN don’t want him to go and they’re not going to terminate him.”
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I reckon Kyle will take it right back up to ARN. They have tolerated this behaviour for years. What has made this incident different?
ARN could easily go under with this.
It beggars belief that these two were being paid that type of money for misogynistic
I recall when Kyle Sandilands called a Daily Telegraph journalist absolutely vile names, because who she had reviewed his TV special unfavourably. This journalist was a ‘fat slag’ and a ‘piece of shit’. He told her to ‘Watch your mouth, girl, or I will hunt you down.” Jacki O simply laughed. In so many ways, she has been worse that him, a shocking enabler of his behaviour.
That terrible incident was in 2011, yet ARN signed them only a few years ago. Unbelievable.