Barristers

A law firm partner has avoided personal liability for costs after expert reports were filed late in a dispute with developer Mirvac over alleged defects in a Sydney apartment complex, having walked back an appeal to “competing commitments” that didn’t wash in court. 

The Legal Practice Board’s decision to audit lawyers at a compensation firm following a complaint about paralegals allegedly engaging in unqualified legal practice has been quashed, with a court finding the law didn’t permit investigation of individual solicitors.

A judge has struck out an allegation by the builder of Sydney’s Opal Tower that insurer Liberty Mutual breached its duty of good faith and has warned Icon to carefully consider whether to re-plead the claim.

A Gadens-led class action against former Quintis director Frank Wilson has settled, but a second class action filed by a rival firm has flagged a potential claim on the settlement funds over a cause of action said to have been “picked up parasitically”. 

Plaintiff firm Maurice Blackburn will foot the bill for the unsuccessful class action against Monsanto over weed killer Roundup, but the company’s reluctance to split the trial in two has come back to bite it.

A judge has temporarily suppressed details of a lawsuit by Super Retail Group’s former top lawyer, but he warned the retailer it would face a high bar if it sought to persuade him to keep the claims under wraps after a first case management hearing.

The Full Federal Court has revived an out-of-time defamation case over an episode of A Current Affair, finding that it would not have been reasonable to file the proceedings within a year given the “spectre of criminal proceedings” against Queensland man Geoffrey Landrey.

Swiss fintech Temenos has partially won its bid to view legal advice received by the Northern Inland Credit Union in a lawsuit alleging the cloud banking provider made misleading representations during negotiations for the installation of a new core banking system.

A contradictor has argued against Monash IVF’s bid for orders allowing it to retain embryos as evidence in a class action, saying the Victorian Supreme Court has no power to make orders inconsistent with the company’s statutory obligation to store embryos for a maximum of five years. 

In submissions to the High Court, the applicant in a class action brought on behalf of Arrium shareholders against KMPG has attacked the Attorney-General’s argument that a contingency fee order is a neutral factor in assessing the accounting firm’s bid to move the case from Victoria.