Judgment

The co-owners of Pacific Werribee shopping centre in Victoria have largely won their bid for insurance documents as they weigh a second case against collapsed construction company, allegedly worth up to $335 million. 

A judge has excused cryptocurrency product provider Block Earner from paying a penalty in a case brought by ASIC, despite finding it provided a financial product without a licence, because it obtained legal advice and genuinely believed it was not breaching the law.

A judge has thrown out a self-represented customer’s lawsuit against non-bank lender Latitude Financial after he defaulted on court orders and refused to join tech giants DXC Technology and Crowdstrike to his case over a cyberattack that compromised 14 million customer records. 

A judge has ordered Sydney coffee shop chain 85 Degrees to pay a $1.44 million penalty for underpayments by its franchisees, saying it cannot be seen as acceptable for franchisors to “turn a blind eye” to contraventions by franchisees. 

Former radio host Antoinette Lattouf is planning to bring an unfair termination case against the broadcaster, after the Fair Work Commission found the ABC terminated her from a casual presenting role.

A judge has upheld Neurim Pharmaceutical’s claim for additional damages against two generic drug companies found to have infringed its patent for insomnia drug Circadin, despite the company’s failure to comply with an earlier ruling.

A judge has approved a $25 million settlement in a class action against a group of surgeons who worked for the Cosmetic Institute, including a $8.9 million payout for the lawyers that ran the seven-year-old case, saying the deduction from the settlement was reasonable given the “very significant discount” applied to the legal bill.

A Melbourne car dealer has largely lost a consumer law case against Honda Australia over its decision to abandon a dealership model, but is set to receive compensation for over 2,600 new vehicles it could have sold if Honda hadn’t ended its five-year contract early.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has prevailed in its case against payday lenders Cigno and BSF Solutions alleging they provided credit without a licence, with a judge rejecting their argument that their loan model was analogous to buy now, pay later arrangements that don’t require a credit licence.

A class action against Toyota alleging it installed diesel defeat devices in several models of its vehicles has lost a bid to access source code for the cars’ emissions control systems, with a judge finding it was not relevant to any current fact in issue.