Mining services company Thiess is challenging a ruling in a class action that put it on the hook for paying workers for time spent bussing to and from their work stations at a construction site on Woodside Energy’s Pilbara-based LNG processing plant.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s insurance division, CommInsure, has pleaded guilty to 87 criminal charges that it hawked life insurance products in unsolicited telephone calls, but wants credit for the early plea.
The National Australia Bank has admitted to most of the violations alleged in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s case over the bank’s $24 billion scandal-ridden ‘Introducer’ loan referral program.
Rio Tinto subsidiary Technological Resources has successfully challenged a decision by IP Australia to reject a patent application for a method of separating mined material, with a judge finding the claimed invention was not a collection of mere working directions as a delegate had found.
The ABC and Fairfax have lost their bid to file an amended defence in defamation proceedings brought by Chinese businessman Chau Chak Wing, several months after the Full Federal Court upheld a ruling striking out out the publishers’ truth defence.
Mining giant Fortescue Metals is seeking special leave from the High Court to appeal a ruling that granted native title to the Yinjibarndi people over a large section of land in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Multiplex is calling for the liquidators of collapsed engineering services group Hastie to pay its costs, and pay now, for pursuing an action to recover millions of dollars in unpaid bills on the grounds that the construction company was not entitled to offset its debts with amounts owing.
Whether judges can alter the terms of litigation funding agreements in class actions is a question that will remain unsettled for now, after litigation funder IMF Bentham chose to sidestep a lengthy, costly and risky challenge to the reach of the court’s powers.
A bid to join Shine Lawyers and barrister David Turner to a negligence suit against an Australian law firm retained to assist with a $630,000 contractual dispute has been dismissed after a judge found it was “not just, desirable or convenient” to drag the two parties into the dispute.
Google has slammed landmark regulatory action brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over the collection and use of location data on Android devices as “cherry-picked”, saying the watchdog had read alleged misstatements by the tech giant out of context.