The High Court has ordered the building and construction union to pay a maximum fine of $63,000 for telling workers they could not be on a job site if they were not union members, saying its serial offending showed it had no “regard for the law”.
A lawyer for Forum Finance director Bill Papas has argued the alleged fraudster should be able to shield documents held by his former lawyer under a claim for legal professional privilege despite being a “fugitive” from contempt charges.
Real estate giant CBRE Group has won its appeal in a dispute with defunct fund manager City Pacific, which claimed the company negligently valued a Queensland marina at $27.3 million in 2006 and caused millions in losses.
Engineering company Worley is challenging an appeals court ruling that allowed a shareholder class action against it to continue, arguing the Full Court’s finding that opinions which “ought reasonably to have been held” should be disclosed to shareholders would lead to “absurd consequences”.
Australian Mercedes-Benz dealers behind a $650 million lawsuit over the car maker’s decision to move to a fixed-price agency model have lost a bid for an “ambitious number” of dealers to view “super confidential” documents from the company’s head office in Germany.
KPMG has again been targeted in a class action by shareholders of a defunct mining company, this time over allegedly misleading statements made by CuDeco ahead of a $63 million capital raising in 2016 and before the company’s collapse in 2020.
A judge has approved a $155,000 settlement in a class action on behalf of investors in failed streaming platform Guvera which racked up $500,000 in legal fees, saying the case should never have been filed as a class action and didn’t advance group members’ interests “one iota”.
A judge has approved a bid by group members to discontinue a class action alleging pharmacy giant Priceline exercised an “overly prescriptive level of control” on franchisees which limited their profitability, saying it was unlikely to succeed with a litigation funder.
Nine has hit back at a class action by Indigenous Australians who say the broadcaster’s coverage of a $30 million class action settlement with the Queensland government for alleged police misconduct during the 2004 Palm Island riots was discriminatory and inaccurate, saying it reported the events “fairly and accurately”.
A judge has barked at lawyers for Nine and a barrister who sued the media company for defamation over its coverage of her battle for custody of famed social media pooch Oscar the cavoodle, saying their “nonsense” quibbling was making him “cranky”.