Events

The Australian Communications and Media Authority says a coding error on a dormant website that went undetected for four years was behind a massive data breach that exposed the information of close to 10 million Optus customers, with the regulator saying the hack was “not highly sophisticated”. 

AMP’s former head of advice Jack Regan has filed proceedings against the owner of The Australian, Nationwide News, over a story he claims defamed him by alleging he misled ASIC over the charging of fees for no service. 

Counsel for Worley in a nine-year-old shareholder class action that is set for another Full Court appeal has foreshadowed a possible recusal application against the judges who heard the first appeal.

The lead applicant in a class action over the alleged unlawful detention of 240 Indonesian children and the Commonwealth are locked in a battle over the construction of a $27.5 million settlement reached last year.

BHP wants to appeal a decision giving a class action the OK to fix what a judge accepted was an “inadvertent mistake” that resulted in a ruling — itself the subject of an appeal — which limited the group member definition.

The United Firefighters Union has lost an appeal of two Fair Work Commission decisions, with the Full Federal Court finding that a commissioner did not err in deciding the matter at a later time.

Journalist Lisa Wilkinson has filed a notice of contention in Bruce Lehrmann’s appeal of a judgment that found he raped colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House, claiming Lehrmann wasn’t just indifferent to his victim’s state of mind but knew she did not consent.

A judge has refused to allow an owners corporation to serve late expert evidence in its case against developer Mirvac over alleged defects in a Sydney apartment complex, saying a solicitor’s explanation about “competing commitments” was inadequate and “a circumstance shared by most members of the legal profession”.

An energy company has taken the minister for climate change and energy to court for refusing to greenlight its Seadragon wind farm project, which would have placed up to 150 wind turbines in waters off the coast of Gippsland, Victoria. 

ASIC has wasted no time in appealing a judge’s decision to excuse cryptocurrency product provider Block Earner from paying a civil penalty on the basis that it took advice from a leading law firm that was not seen by the court.