Companies

The NSW Supreme Court would have the power to deal with a contingency fee order made in a class action against KPMG if the accounting firm won its application to move the case from Victoria, making the existence of the order a neutral factor in the transfer bid, the federal Attorney-General has told the High Court.  

Medibank failed to put in place baseline security measures, including multi-factor authentication, to safeguard sensitive information from a hacker in 2022, who stole an IT contractor’s credentials and logged in to the health insurer’s private network three months before the company learned its data was compromised, the OAIC says.

Journalist Lisa Wilkinson has filed a notice of contention in Bruce Lehrmann’s appeal of a judgment that found he raped colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House, claiming Lehrmann wasn’t just indifferent to his victim’s state of mind but knew she did not consent.

A former Ernst & Young partner accused of promoting tax exploitation schemes wants to strike out portions of the ATO’s case, but the tax office argues he has threatened the application since last year and is preoccupied with a satellite fight to keep his name out of the media.

A judge overseeing several cases against Optus over a September 2022 data breach has raised the possibility of hearing a class action against the telco alongside new proceedings brought by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

An IP Australia delegate has shot down Apple’s application to patent a touchscreen interface used on its electronic devices, calling the invention a “logistical scheme” for organising media files rather than a technological innovation. 

Westpac subsidiary RAMS has flagged a cross-claim against disgruntled franchisees who say their agreements were terminated without proper cause, citing possible breaches of the National Credit Act. 

Santos is seeking to wrangle further documents from the Environmental Defenders Office to support its bid for costs orders against the law firm, telling a court there must have been “glaring deficiencies” in the standard of its services in running its challenge to construction of a pipeline for the energy company’s $5.6 billion Barossa gas project.

A Senate report into the government’s use of consultants, launched in the wake of PwC’s leak of confidential Treasury information, has recommended an inquiry into whether partnerships should be subject to the same regulations as corporations and again called on PwC to release the names of all those involved in the leak of confidential government information.

The Mining and Energy Union is pursuing pay increases of up to $40,000 per year for labour hire workers at three BHP coal mines under new legislation, saying the energy giant’s use of labour hire to cut pay was “out of step” with community standards and the law.