The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will not oppose the merger of two companies that own some of Australia’s largest intellectual property boutiques.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, facing cross-claims by credit ratings agency Fitch in a class action alleging it gave false or misleading double A and triple A ratings to synthetic CDOs backed by Sigma Financial, told investors Fitch’s withdrawal of Sigma’s credit rating prior to the collapse of the $27 billion investment fund was a “technical” issue, the bank has admitted.
The ACCC will announce in May whether it will approve the proposed $15 billion merger of telco giants TPG and Vodafone Hutchison Australia, after the parties’ failure to comply with requests for information caused the regulator to suspend its timeline last month.
A name partner at law firm Tucker & Cowen and the firm itself have lost their bid for summary dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the receiver of failed fund manager Equititrust seeking to recover $17.5 million allegedly acquired through deceptive means.
A judge has rejected a claim of legal privilege over emails at the centre of a copyright lawsuit over a puppet-show parody of the 80s sitcom Golden Girls, a production that has spawned legal action between the collaborators in New York and Australia.
The Chief Justice of the Federal Court wants four referees to weigh what’s expected to be voluminous expert evidence in three class actions against the Commonwealth of Australia over exposure to allegedly toxic foam used on a government military bases, saying with 60 class actions pending in the Federal Court, devoting a single judge to the case for months on end should be a “mechanism of last resort”.
Industry group Meat & Livestock Australia is challenging a ruling allowing US company Branhaven’s cow genome patent to proceed, after a judge called the group’s challenge to Branhaven’s amendments to the patent “bizarre” and “flimsy”.
The Australian chapter of biker group the Hells Angels has mostly come up short in its wide-ranging intellectual property lawsuit against online marketplace Redbubble. But the judge that heard the case may have opened the door for more IP lawsuits against the print-on-demand site by shooting down its claims that its not a seller but merely a platform for artists and consumers to engage.
Fairfax Media is challenging a ruling ordering it to pay $280,000 in damages to Chau Chak Wing for an allegedly defamatory article that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald linking the wealthy Chinese-Australian businessman to an international bribery scandal.
The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union has appealed a ruling granting $1 million to the liquidators of failure labour hire company One Key Workforce that the union claimed was owed to its members.