Judges

A judge has ruled that a settlement offer made in a case can be adduced into evidence in a construction company’s suit against its former lawyers, finding that the offer was not covered by without penalty privilege.

A judge has signed off on almost $7.5 million in fees billed by the law firm behind the pelvic mesh class action against Boston Scientific, eight months after he approved the device maker’s $105 million settlement.

AMP has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a class action by financial advisers over its buyer of last resort policy, after suffering a loss at trial.

A judge has ordered wealth manager Mercer Financial Advice to pay a $12 million penalty for “extremely serious” fees-for-no-service conduct and breaches of its fee disclosure obligations, in a case brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. In the case, filed in June last year,  ASIC alleged that Mercer charged 761 customers a total…

A franchise class action against United Petroleum has asked a court for leave to expand the class action to include a group of commission agents and to add the oil company’s parent as a third defendant.

ASIC has escaped an individual insolvency practitioner’s bid for indemnity costs in its failed case alleging illegal phoenix activity, with a judge finding the regulator did not unreasonably reject a settlement offer that would have netted it “a considerably better result” than it won at trial.

Novartis unit Sandoz AG has filed an appeal after it was was barred from selling a generic version of top-selling blood clot drug Xarelto and failed to revoke two Bayer patents for the drug.

A judge has reduced the jail sentence imposed on a Brisbane man who falsely represented he was a lawyer on the Airtasker app, but refused his bid to get away with a fine, saying a prison term “was the only appropriate sentencing option” in the case.

Giving testimony during the first day of trial in his case against Network Ten, Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann said he suffered significant mental health struggles after the broadcaster aired allegations he raped fellow staffer Brittany Higgins at Parliament House.

Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann has settled his defamation case against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation over coverage of the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins on the first day of trial, with proceedings to continue against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.