Judgment

A judge has allowed a Central Coast resident to weigh in on Optus’ challenge to a council's refusal to bless its plans to build a telecommunications tower, saying the council’s “commercial relationship” with the telco justified a contradictor.

The Full Court has upheld the cancellation of a US sports merchandise company's 'Fanatics' trade mark, agreeing it knew about Australian AFL merchandise maker FanFirm’s trade marks when it chose its name. 

Aristocrat has lost its bid to question class action members about whether they have a gambling problem ahead of mediation, with a judge saying it called for “self-diagnosis” and would not yield reliable results.

In the third decision approving an unaltered group costs order at the resolution of a class action, a judge has OK'd an $85 million settlement by ANZ, representing a $21 million payday for Maurice Blackburn.

A judge has given the greenlight to a $10 million settlement with entities linked to late solicitor and Banksia class action mastermind Mark Elliott, noting the “perverse” difficulty of recovering more of the $70 million in assets held on trust.

Retirement village operator Lifestyle Communities has foreshadowed an appeal after a tribunal ruled that exit fees charged to departing residents were void.

Melbourne developer SK Developments has won freezing orders against a builder, with a judge finding there was a danger that a $1.98 million judgment could be avoided. 

A tribunal has found a company that scrapes court databases broke privacy laws by failing to remove a litigant's name after charges against her were dropped, saying the public nature of court lists doesn't make republication a “free for all”.

A judge hearing a dispute over a lot in Victoria's Merrifield Business Park has found that the Competition and Consumer Act's bar on contracts that substantially lessen competition does not apply to a market in land.

A judge has vacated an upcoming trial date in a data scraping case against US-based CoreLogic to allow the analytics company more time to respond to a "weighty" report by a forensic accountant.