In an important ruling that confines the scope of “industrial activity” under the Fair Work Act, the Full Federal Court has overturned a $50,000 fine against the CFMEU and two officials for organising a work stoppage at a Brighton construction site that the union said needed a female toilet.
Last-mile logistics software firm GetSwift has offered a last minute undertaking that it will be covered for any judgments and penalties in a class action and ASIC case, after a judge expressed concerns about the company’s bid to redomicile to Canada amid the ongoing litigation.
The group providing funding to claimants in a class action against the federal government over its 2011 ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia does not have to comply with new rules requiring litigation funders to obtain an AFSL and operate as a managed investment scheme in order to sign up new group members.
The chief of the Australian Defence Force has lost a bid to keep information obtained by a war crimes inquiry from three news publishers defending against a defamation suit by war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith.
The corporate regulator is pushing for a three-year director ban against former Murray Goulburn managing director Gary Helou and a two-year disqualification order against the dairy cooperative’s former chief financial officer over misleading representations about farmgate milk prices five years ago.
The High Court has ruled that a patentee’s rights to control what can be done with a patented product after it is sold are “exhausted” upon sale.
That a first filed case should be the presumptive winner in a competition between class actions seemed a losing argument before the High Court on Tuesday as the justices weighed a challenge to a ruling picking one among a group of class actions against AMP, but the court also appeared skeptical of the power to hold wide ranging inquiries into the merits of competing cases.
CFMEU official Michael O’Connor has successfully appealed a ruling that threw out his lawsuit seeking to restrain union heavyweight John Setka from poaching members from the union’s manufacturing division.
The Federal Court’s top judge has cautioned ASIC and insurers Allianz and AWP against presenting a “bastardised form of pleading” in the financial watchdog’s action over the alleged misleading sale of travel insurance to over 31,000 consumers.
A judge has expressed doubts that every group member in the Robodebt class action is vulnerable, as the parties gear up for two-week trial in the high-profile case over the unlawful debt recovery method that begins Monday.