Merck Sharp & Dohme has claimed ownership of a Pfizer patent related to the blockbuster Prevnar 13 vaccine, after a doctor who moved between the pharmaceutical companies and is listed as an author on the patent allegedly accessed confidential Merck documents before jumping ship to Pfizer.
Lawyers for IOOF chief financial officer David Coulter have dismissed APRA’s allegations that he breached his superannuation duties as commercially “naïve”, “absolutely desperate” and a “most egregious example” of impulsive regulatory enforcement action.
The publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times have lost an appeal of a $300,000 defamation award to cricketer Chris Gayle, despite the appeals court finding Gayle’s barrister had gone “too far” in his submissions to the jury.
A judge overseeing a class action against engineering company UGL has agreed to extend a class closure order to give the parties a second chance to resolve the case in mediation, but not without expressing concerns that the order did not have the intended effect of encouraging settlement at the first sit-down.
A court has barred US drug company Merck Sharp & Dohme from denying that an agreement made with German pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA was governed by German law, settling a key question before a trade mark case between the two drug giants goes to trial.
The judge overseeing the Sydney light rail class action has ordered that a contradictor be appointed to weigh in on a proposed common fund order, which includes a 25 per cent commission for the funder that is backing the case.
Actor Geoffrey Rush is pulling out all the stops in his bid to uphold his record $2.9 million defamation judgment against Daily Telegraph publisher Nationwide News, briefing a prominent Sydney barrister to lead his case against the appeal.
Two former executives of Dick Smith may seek to vacate an upcoming trial date for two class actions against the failed retailer, after recently being hit with cross claims by the company’s former auditor, Deloitte.
Indonesian national airline Garuda faces a possible contempt motion by the competition regulator for failing to pay a $19 million court-issued fine after it was found guilty of air cargo price-fixing, a failure a judge called “almost unthinkable”.
The former directors of troubled fund manager IOOF have slammed APRA for bringing a “truly hopeless” disqualification case against them, telling a court the prudential regulator’s “Stalinist” approach was deterring “good people and good companies” from participating in the superannuation industry.