Barristers

The farmers leading a class action against Advanta Seeds over contaminated product have brought their case to the High Court, challenging an appeals court’s holding that a disclaimer nullified the company’s duty to protect growers against economic loss.

A judge has granted a discovery bid by two of Gina Rinehart’s children as a long-running fight over ownership of a valuable mining tenement nears trial, and has rejected her company’s argument that they were solely responsible for dragging out a dispute over documents.

Award-wining architecture firm Ashton Raggatt McDougall and its former boss have agreed to pay a combined $975,000 in penalties for attempting to rig bids on a $250 million building project at Charles Darwin University.

Carnival has won its bid to strike out a class action over norovirus outbreaks on its Sun Princess cruise ship. 

Bayer told a jury that clinical trials from the 1990’s to 2014 showed its Essure birth control device was “safe and efficacious”, as the pharmaceutical giant faces trial in a class action by patients who claim they suffered debilitating injuries from the device.

BlueScope Steel spent $27 million defending the ACCC’s claims that it engaged in serious cartel conduct in relation to the supply of flat steel products in Australia, and its apologies came too late to warrant a penalty discount, a court has heard.

Crikey publisher Private Media has filed a new contextual truth defence to defamation claims brought by Lachlan Murdoch, arguing the Fox News CEO is “morally and ethically culpable” for the January 6 riot on the US Capitol.

Spain has lost its High Court appeal arguing it had sovereign immunity from an Australian court’s recognition of a $394 million arbitration award against the country for changes to its energy policies. 

A court has heard that a director at office leasing company Cushman & Wakefield who accepted a job with a competitor could lose a $1.3 million sign-on bonus if the case by her former employer is not promptly resolved.

Pharmaceutical giant Bayer cannot write off debilitating chronic pain and bleeding which patients allegedly experienced after being implanted with Essure contraceptives as “common women’s symptoms”, a court has heard in the first day of trial in a long-running class action.