Judgment

A decision by federal environment minister Tanya Pibersek to greenlight the extension of two mega coal mines in NSW was “legally open” to her, a judge has ruled, despite acknowledging the “existential threat” of climate change. 

A nose job patient who allegedly defamed his surgeon has been hit with indemnity costs after refusing the surgeon’s “exceptionally generous” offer to settle.

A judge has dismissed a Paralympian cyclist’s defamation suit over a Facebook comment by a former girlfriend, finding he suffered no serious harm from the comment, which accused him of lying about his disability.

A judge has denied Fairfax’s bid to strike out allegations by a Western Australian businessman that it was the publisher of allegedly defamatory comments that appeared on one of its Facebook pages.

Two law firms that were able to “work cooperatively” to join their cases have been awarded carriage of a shareholder class action against mining firm Downer EDI. The judge overseeing the proceedings also approved a group costs order application that proposed a “reasonable rate” of return to the firms.

A judge has permanently stayed a class action accusing Meta and Google of breaching competition law by banning cryptocurrency ads, finding there was a potential for conflicts between the self-represented applicant, who is also funding the case, and group members.

Opal Tower engineer WSP has succeeded in claiming the costs of a class action from insurers for builder Icon, with a judge finding engineers were not excluded from the policy’s coverage for subcontractors.

In allowing Seven and chairman Kerry Stokes to challenge a ruling granting Fairfax access to 8,600 emails with accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith’s legal team, a judge has said they will suffer prejudice if “personally embarrassing” communications are put into evidence. 

A traditional custodian has won her bid to halt seismic blasting for Woodside’s Scarborough gas project off the coast of Western Australia, in a legal challenge similar to one that put Santos’ $4.7 billion Barossa project on ice.

A former top judge appointed to decide the first-ever contest to administer a class action settlement has set out his criteria for making the choice, and has warned that giving the firm running a case a monopoly right to dole out the proceeds could lead to higher costs for group members and poorer settlement outcomes.