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.
A former financial advised has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for doing ‘as he pleased’ with $5 million in client funds that were earmarked for superannuation investments.
The judge overseeing the marathon Queensland floods class action has shot down a request by the defendants to submit new expert flood modeling reports, saying the “sophisticated litigants” would have to live with their earlier decision to pass on the chance to submit evidence in response to new reports by the plaintiff’s expert.
The founder of JustKapital is considering adding Corrs Chambers Westgarth to a lawsuit he brought seeking nearly $1 million allegedly owed as part of a deal he made to step down as managing director from the litigation funder.