Judgment

Melbourne craft beer producer Brick Lane Brewing has lost its lawsuit accusing three companies behind the zero carb Better Beer of ripping off its packaging in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

Crown Melbourne has lost a bid to patent a modified roulette game intended to bridge the gap between the European and American versions of the game, with IP Australia finding the invention does not constitute a manner of manufacture.

Liquidators for collapsed forestry giant Gunns Plantations have lost a High Court appeal over $1.2 million in payments to a former supplier that confirmed the so-called peak indebtedness rule does not apply in Australian insolvency law.

Uber has won a strike-out bid in a lawsuit by drivers challenging their classification as independent contractors, with a judge finding the pleading was “self-evidently, uncommonly and irretrievably deficient.”

A judge has thrown out a lawsuit by the maker of Raw C coconut water alleging a rival’s coconut water featuring a similar aqua blue packaging with images of palm fronds would confuse consumers.

A judge has approved a $5.8 million settlement in an underpayments class action against convenience store chain On The Run despite what she said was the class action law firm’s “extraordinary” reason for reaching the deal.

A judge has found Nine should not face an out-of-time defamation action over an allegedly defamatory episode of A Current Affair that aired in 2019.

Two former staffers of senator Jacqui Lambie who represented themselves in an unsuccessful unfair dismissal case have been hit with nearly $50,000 in legal costs each due to their “unreasonable conduct” in the case, including attempts to turn the proceeding into “a trial by media.”

In one of the first cases to test a new ‘serious harm’ threshold for defamation matters, a judge has knocked back a NSW house painter’s defamation case over a one star Google review, saying that people would consider “unflattering” business reviews to be expressions of personal opinion. 

Optus has won more time to bring a counterclaim in a $100 million lawsuit by mobile retailer TeleChoice alleging it was misled when the telecommunications giant claimed it would earn the same revenue as in an agreement that was being negotiated with Telstra.