A judge has thrown out an urgent bid by Australian religious leaders for a temporary exemption from COVID-19 lockdown orders in NSW and Victoria to observe upcoming religious holidays, saying granting the injunction may lead to deaths.
A judge has ordered the ACCC to pay the State of NSW’s costs in its failed proceeding against NSW Ports, finding that even though the consumer watchdog did not initially sue the state government that it was a “necessary and proper” party to the case.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has appealed a judge’s decision throwing out its competition case over an agreement for the privatisation of two NSW ports, calling the case “a matter of significance for the Australian economy”.
The ACCC’s claim that NSW Ports stymied competition when it signed a 50-year agreement with the state to be compensated if the Port of Newcastle built a container terminal was based on “mere speculative hopes”, a judge found in tossing the competition watchdog’s regulatory action.
The ACCC has lost its regulatory action against NSW Ports alleging a 50-year agreement with the state, signed when Port Botany and Port Kembla were privatised in 2013, was anti-competitive.
Volkswagen has asked the High Court to throw out a a landmark $125 million penalty over its emissions cheating scandal, the highest ever handed down in Australia for consumer law violations.
The judge overseeing a conflicted remuneration class action against Suncorp has locked in a trial date for May next year over the protests of the applicants, saying it was “not a good look” for class actions to “hang” around.
Lawyerly’s Litigation Firms of 2020 delivered significant victories for clients last year in bet-the-company matters, thriving in a tumultuous year that saw courts and litigants adapt to virtual trials and other new norms that are sure to outlast the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ACCC has reached the end of the line in its challenge to Pacific National’s $205 million acquisition of Aurizon’s Acacia Ridge Terminal in Queensland, with the High Court dismissing the competition regulator’s application to take up the appeal.
A maritime development company has had its discovery hopes dashed in its stayed competition lawsuit against NSW Ports, with a judge finding that the company would not suffer any injustice in waiting until the stay is lifted after a similar case brought by the competition regulator is heard.