Judgment

A former director of defunct mining and exploration company Continental Coal has been sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment for failing to act in good faith in performing his directors’ duties in relation to $1 million in bridging finance.  

A judge has approved a $5 million class action settlement against payment processor Tyro over a service outage but has shredded the proposed funder payout and legal fees that would have comprised 60 per cent of the sum, calling the costs “outrageous”. 

New Zealand honey producers have failed in a lengthy fight with their Aussie counterparts to trade mark the term ‘manuka honey’, with the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand ruling the phrase is merely descriptive of a type of honey.

An appeals court has said that while it might be desirable for law firms to disclose their involvement in drafting expert reports, they are not legally obligated to do so, overturning a finding that Corrs Chambers Westgarth went “far beyond the permissible scope” of involvement in a report prepared for a trade secrets case.

A judge has ordered contractor JKC Australia to hand over legal advice relating to a settlement deed it entered with Japanese oil company Inpex in 2021, as it seeks to hold Dutch paint company AkzoNobel NV responsible for its “significant” potential liability under the settlement.

A judge has ordered a litigation funder that bankrolled a photographer’s unsuccessful copyright claim against CoreLogic to pay indemnity costs to the property data analytics company, saying the funder was not “motivated by any concerns for access to justice”.

An appeals court has found a seven-year non-competition clause in US tech giant DXC Eclipse’s agreement with the former director of Melbourne software firm Sable37, which it acquired in 2018, was unreasonable.

The company behind the Ultimate Fighting Championship gym franchise has been ordered to pay $5 million to three franchisees after a judge found it misled them about businesses which were “near valueless” and unlikely to make profit. 

Automotive electronics company Directed Electronics is set to claw back $3.27 million in commission payments made to a former manager through a secret side agreement with South Korean giant Hanhwa, with a ruling on damages still to come in the five-year case.

An appeals court has shot down funder Augusta’s challenge to a decision that cut its commission in the Opal Tower class action, putting funders on notice that they will have to marshal compelling evidence to win approval for their returns from an increasingly watchful court.