Industries

Digital currency exchange Block Earner needed a licence to offer its crypto-backed Earner product, a court has found in one of the first decisions on the application of financial services law to crypto investments.

A judge has held that there could be favourable costs consequences for Carnival if its rejected $15 million settlement offer in the Ruby Princess class action turns out to be more generous than the ultimate damages award, departing from a previous ruling that so-called Calderbank offers do not operate in group proceedings. 

Two marine freight companies have lost a fight with a local council which refused to allow it to unload 3,000 head of cattle at Apollo Bay in Victoria, with a judge finding they were “the architects of their own misfortune” for striking a deal with a beef company before securing permission to berth at the port. 

South Korean biosimilars company Samsung Bioepis has sued Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Biotech to invalidate two patents for Crohn’s disease drug Stelara, after reaching a licencing agreement over the medicine in the US.

Health law practitioners are grappling with “snowballing awards” in claims over psychiatric injuries, according to Sparke Helmore’s new health law partner. 

A Melbourne orthopaedic clinic has lost its bid to register the name ‘Melbourne Bone and Joint Clinic’ as a trade mark, with a judge finding the phrase was just an ordinary combination of words. 

Online broker International Capital Markets has been hit with a second class action for selling “excessively risky” derivative products known as contracts for difference to retail investors. 

Car repair giant AMA Group has resolved its case against three former executives that sought to block them from poaching staff and customers for competing business Drive Group. 

Telstra has won its bid to vacate a hearing in a case by former contractor Kingfisher Mobile seeking to bar the telco from migrating customers to a new mobile services provider, after a judge found Kingfisher’s delay in filing the case meant meeting the date would be unfair. 

A judge has signed off on a 27.5 per cent group costs order in a consolidated shareholder class action against Medibank over a cyberattack that affected 10 million customers, noting the “significant risk” taken on by the two plaintiff law firms running the action.