Cindy Cameronne

Select AFSL, its related entities and its director have been slapped with $13.6 million in penalties after a judge found that the life insurer used unconscionable phone sales tactics to “wear down” often vulnerable consumers, including migrants and Indigenous communities.

The successor of Dow Agrosciences has lost its latest bid to register a patent that is aimed at limiting the worldwide problem of herbicide vapour drift after a delegate found that its seventh such patent had no inventive step. 

A court has blessed a trust’s settlement with Ernst & Young that resolves a negligence case linked to a decade-long tax dispute that went to the High Court, rejecting an objection to the deal and saying it was “time this matter was brought to a conclusion”.

The tax leaks scandal engulfing PricewaterhouseCoopers has been referred to the newly formed National Anti-Corruption Commission, as the accounting firm sacks eight partners for professional governance breaches.

A psychiatrist has reached a confidential settlement with Harper Collins in his defamation case over a book about the controversial deep sleep therapy at the Chelmsford Private Hospital in the 1970s.

The new federal corruption watchdog that commenced operating Friday will likely turn its sights first on the award of public grants, and is expected to face a “huge backlog” of referrals. 

A judge has cautioned two law firms running competing shareholder class actions over last October’s cyber attack on Medibank that they must keep their focus on the best interests of clients and group members, saying lawyers can lose sight of that duty when arguing for their case. 

The office of the special investigator wants access to evidence in Ben Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation case, a court has heard, while Fairfax says it needs to see invoices from Herbert Smith Freehills to the soldier’s financial backer, Seven chairman Kerry Stokes, in its bid for costs.

Ex-Network Ten political editor Peter van Onselen has told a judge he was worried when he signed a disputed non-disparagement agreement that the broadcaster would “hang him out to dry” in a sex discrimination lawsuit by a former reporter.

A judge has rejected an amended copyright case against US-based analytics company CoreLogic, expressing his displeasure at the use of imprecise phrases like ‘including’ and “such as’ in the revised pleading.