Trials

Trial begins Tuesday in the consumer regulator's case against Woolworths over alleged dodgy discounts, with the supermarket chain set to argue there was nothing phony about its 'Prices Dropped' campaign.

Former ACCC chair Allan Fels says the competition regulator appears to have a strong misuse of market power case against Mastercard, but noted the credit card giant may raise arguments about two-sided markets in defending the claims.

APAC issued a default notice to Dexus' infrastructure fund manager for a purported breach of a shareholder agreement during a share sales process to "get rid of" it, a trial has heard.

Mastercard has hit back at the ACCC’s claims that it sought to prevent competition with EFTPOS through strategic agreements with large retailers, saying the deals were struck for “benign and pro-competitive” reasons. 

Mastercard executives who claim they had no anti-competitive purpose when pursuing agreements with retailers to favour its network are expected to face cross-examination about responses given to the Reserve Bank about its least cost routing initiative.

Mastercard made ‘strategic’ agreements with large retailers like Coles and David Jones to keep them from routing through EFTPOS, offering discounted exchange rates that left smaller businesses footing the bill, the ACCC told the court on the first day of trial.

Institutional asset manager IFM Investor was ready to sweep up Dexus' shares in Melbourne Airport operator APAC under a forced sale process triggered by a default notice for alleged confidentiality breaches, a court heard Tuesday.

The court battle between APAC and major shareholder Dexus over the sale of an investor's stake in the airport operator went to a hearing this week, but it's the solicitors representing the warring parties that found themselves on trial.

A senior in-house lawyer at Dexus has rejected suggestions she was “careless” in her role in the sale of shares in Melbourne Airport operator APAC, saying she relied on a subordinate lawyer and others within the business. 

Lawyers assured two Dexus executives that it was OK to share the confidential information of Melbourne Airport operator APAC with proposed purchasers of the real estate asset manager's stake in the company, a court has heard.