Cindy Cameronne

Oil exploration company PTTEP has argued 15,000 Indonesian seaweed farmers who brought a class action alleging their crops were damaged after an oil spill in the Timor Sea will need to individually persuade the court to allow their claims out of time.

Mercedes can’t access communications between Australia’s peak body for car dealers and a Labor senator to use in its defence of a $650 million lawsuit over its decision to move to a fixed-price agency model.

A judge has allowed four ex-Linchpin directors facing possible fines by ASIC to put off filing evidence or amended defences in an investor class action after they claimed it would put them at risk of penalty in the corporate regulator’s proceedings.

Officials at the Mercedes-Benz Australia head office referred to car dealers as “baby piglets” in internal communications and threatened and bullied the retailers, a trial court has been told in a $650 million lawsuit over the car maker’s decision to move to a fixed-price agency model.

A judge has given a “judicial harrumph” to Sydney developer FKP Commercial Developments and Irish insurer Zurich Insurance in a dispute over coverage for an apartment defects suit, saying it was not for the court to “trawl” through an insurance policy to work out its meaning. 

Several lenders have appealed a ruling that found they failed to prove steel giant Arrium falsified representations on loan drawdown notices ahead of its $2.8 billion collapse, saying it was a “no brainer” that the company was in dire straits when its directors sought extra funds.

Slater & Gordon has defeated Shine Lawyers in a contest to run a shareholder class action against Beach Energy, with a judge finding Shine’s tiered contingency fee arrangement was “mere window dressing”.

Bell Potter has defeated a lawsuit by Nicholas Bolton’s Keybridge Capital over a 2015 phone call which lasted one minute and 18 seconds in which the investment firm was accused of committing its client to buy $10 million worth of shares in defunct Molopo Energy.

A judge who lashed “unsatisfactory cooperation” between Chubb and British automotive distributor Inchcape has found the insurer’s policy covers some but not all costs stemming from a cyber attack which allegedly caused over $4 million in loss.

Salaries for junior to mid-level lawyers have increased by 20 per cent in the last year but the legal market is facing difficulties as firms struggle to fill positions, causing the traditional law firm pyramid structure to “collapse”, a report has found.