A native title challenge to Adani Mining’s controversial $16 billion development of the Carmichael coal mine in Queensland has been revived, with a group of Indigenous Australians appealing a ruling that tossed their case.
The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission has said it will permit a $13 billion acquisition of Australian energy infrastructure business APA Group by a Hong Kong group of companies after accepting a court-enforceable undertaking.
An Adani Group subsidiary is facing a fine of up to $2.7 million in an enforcement action by Queensland’s environment regulator over an unauthorised discharge of sediment water from its Abbot Point Coal terminal.
Maurice Blackburn has filed its promised class action against BHP Billiton over the Brazilian dam collapse, and the case puts a twist on typical funding arrangements, with the law firm looking to earn what it dubs a “litigation services fee” for financing the case itself.
The law should be altered to make unfair contract terms illegal, ACCC Chair Rod Sims says, and the regulator plans to use its clout to push for the change.
Spanish construction company Técnicas Reunidas can’t block two Pinsent Masons solicitors, formerly with Norton Rose, from representing Downer EDI Engineering in an ICC arbitration between the two companies, with an appeals court saying unanswered emails provided sufficient proof a retainer had been terminated.
A $3 million settlement in the shareholder class action against the directors of failed mining company Kagara has been approved, with a Federal Court judge saying the amount is fair and reasonable despite two-thirds of it going to the lawyers and funder that brought the case.
Hancock Prospecting, owned by mining magnate Mrs Gina Rinehart, is fighting a bid by daughter Ms Bianca Rinehart to access the company’s books and records, saying an upcoming High Court decision may change the fate of the case.
The bitter dispute between Gina Rinehart and two of her children over billions of dollars in iron ore mining assets may come down to how the High Court interprets a single word in an arbitration clause of agreements signed by the warring family members.
A group of Indigenous Australians has failed to block Adani Mining’s $16 billion development of the proposed Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland, with a judge dismissing the claims as “void of merit”.