Industries

Wholesale retailer Costco has paid a penalty of $33,000 to the consumer watchdog after being caught out for labelling imported lobster as locally sourced.

A Federal Court judge overseeing a class action against IG Markets over risky financial products has questioned whether courts should take a “more robust” approach to avoid the “nonsense” of competing class actions, amid the threat of a second class action being filed in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers partner who is suing the accounting firm for giving him the boot over a tax leaks scandal has won an interim injunction restraining the board of partners from forcing him to leave before his case is heard.

Former director of event management company the Human Group, Helen Rosamond, has been sentenced to a 15-year aggregate term of imprisonment for defrauding NAB of $19 million, and will have to serve eight years of the sentence behind bars.

A judge has ruled insurer Vero can be added to a class action over allegedly combustible cladding, finding removal of the cladding could be considered “property damage” under the wording of an insurance contract with cladding manufacturer Fairview.

The ACCC has raised concerns about Coles plans to acquire milk processing plants from Saputo, with the regulator saying the transaction — marking the first time a supermarket chain has ventured into the processing market — would be a “major structural change”.

The proposed $1.5 billion merger of Australian Clinical Labs and Healius — two of Australia’s largest pathology services providers — is likely to substantially lessen competition, the ACCC has warned.

A judge has found the state of NSW liable to compensate the lead plaintiffs in a class action brought on behalf of small businesses over the “substantial and unreasonable” interference caused by the construction of Sydney’s $3 billion light rail network, but he flagged “significant problems” in applying his findings to thousands of potential group members.

A former chef of catering company Peter Rowland Group has lost her fight for gender pay equality, with the Fair Work Commission accepting the merits of her claim but ruling the legislation that covers equal pay can apply only to current employees.

A union representing 54 junior doctors alleging they were systemically underpaid has defeated a bid by NSW Health to stay its case until the determination of a related class action on behalf of tens of thousands of medical officers.