Telecommunications

A law firm has secured more funds to cover the cost of distributing a $20 million settlement reached in a class action against telco contractor BSA, but not as much as it wanted, with a judge saying the firm would have been stuck with its initial estimate if the administration gig had been put out to tender.

Telstra has been hit with a $1.5 million penalty from the communications regulator for failing to perform the requisite costumer ID authentication on over 150,000 “high-risk” interactions, such as SIM card swaps.

Telstra has been reprimanded by ACMA after the communications regulator found the silent numbers of more than 140,000 customers — including domestic violence victims — were made public.

A senior barrister has filed another suit against Telstra alleging it flags his emails to Bigpond addresses as spam and fails to send them, after suing the telco for allegedly falsely promising he could keep his chambers’ phone numbers when switching to the NBN.

The ACCC has accepted undertakings from Telstra and Optus not to renew agreements requiring them to pre-install Google apps on Android devices as part of its competition probe into Google.

A judge overseeing several cases against Optus over a September 2022 data breach has raised the possibility of hearing a class action against the telco alongside new proceedings brought by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Optus has lost its appeal of a decision that found the telco could not claim legal professional privilege over a Deloitte report into a major data breach, with an appeals court highlighting the lack of evidence from former CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has brought proceedings against Optus over a September 2022 data breach that comprised the data of up to 10 million customers, the first lawsuit filed by a regulator following a string of major cyberattacks over the past two years.

A judge has quashed a statutory demand by K&L Gates seeking $745,000 in fees from a former client, saying the law firm’s alleged debt included amounts owing its US counterpart, in currency converted to Australian dollars who knows when.

A judge has rejected Aussie Broadband’s bid to restrain internet service provider Superloop from acting on a sell order issued last month, calling the argument that Superloop issued the order for an improper purpose “a very weak” one.