A judge has scrapped overly-long written submissions by barristers in proceedings brought by two CFMEU whistleblowers and replaced them with an extra day of oral submissions at the end of the hearing, saying he was not duped by the “old game” of shrinking margins and fonts in submissions.
A judge has granted Qantas an injunction temporarily blocking the Fair Work Commission from hearing a case brought by the union for the airline’s stood-down aircraft maintenance engineers, saying the issues raised in the case had potentially wide ramifications for all Australian businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Australia’s competition regulator has asked technology companies, news outlets and other stakeholders to grapple with some of the complex issues required to develop the Government’s new mandatory code, which will see digital giants such as Google and Facebook forced to bargain with publishers and pay for news content.
German cladding manufacturer 3A Composites is pushing forward with a bid to close a class action over allegedly combustible cladding to registered group members, arguing that a recent appeals court decision does not bar class closure in this case.
The operators of three Hero Sushi outlets have been fined a record $891,000 for underpaying staff and providing false records to the Fair Work Ombudsman to cover up what a judge referred to as wage “fraud”.
A court has granted a request from Grosvenor Litigation Services, the funder that backed two class actions against Volkswagen over its emissions cheating scandal, to suppress the details of a co-funding agreement with Vannin Capital.
Nine-owned Fairfax Media has been hit with a defamation lawsuit by Papua New Guinea’s Minister of Trade & Commerce, who claims the Australian Financial Review engaged in a “smear campaign” by publishing an article accusing him of corruption, bribery and money laundering.
Atanaskovic Hartnell has mostly come up short in a court battle for over $172,000 in legal fees, with a judge finding the law firm was in a “manifest position of conflict” in its dispute with two media companies defrauded by one of its former lawyers, Brody Clarke.
Westpac has admitted to millions of breaches of anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing laws, and has told a court it did not adequately monitor transactions of customers linked to child exploitation.
Supermarket giant Coles has been hit with a class action after revealing in February that it owes staff in its supermarket and liquor businesses at least $20 million in pay.