Judges

The judge who found that disgraced soldier Ben Roberts-Smith committed war crimes in Afghanistan did not show “full consideration of the presumption of innocence” in his defamation case, an appeals court has heard. 

Cruise ship operator Carnival PLC has flagged a bid for indemnity costs after the lead applicant in a class action over a COVID-19 outbreak aboard the Ruby Princess rejected a $15 million settlement offer.

Former Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming has lost a bid to split her defamation case against state party leader John Pesutto, after a judge expressed his reluctance to have the court sort through her claim that publications by Pesutto carried 67 different defamatory imputations against her, including that she is a neo-Nazi. 

A shareholder class action against livestock exporter Wellard over a profit downgrade following its $300 million initial public offering in 2015 has settled for $23 million. 

A judge has approved a $4.5 million settlement in a class action over a fire allegedly ignited by welding work in rural NSW, despite a handful of objections from group members. 

A professor from Texas has no business offering an opinion on the meaning of One Nation senator Pauline Hanson’s exhortation to the Greens party deputy leader that she “piss off back to Pakistan”, a court has heard.

The top judge in NSW has called for more court resources and funding to ease the burden of an overworked judiciary, in an impassioned speech backed by the state’s solicitors and barristers.

A judge has signed off on a bill that brings the total settlement administration costs in a class action against Johnson & Johnson unit De Puy to over $13 million, amid a push by some judges to open the settlement administration gig up to competition.

Still in the dark about insurance coverage and seeking to stem the flow of cash, two class actions against Heritage Care and St Basil’s over COVID-19 outbreaks have been shelved pending the outcome of criminal cases against the Victorian aged care providers, in a decision the judge said “wouldn’t gladden the hearts of group members”. 

Construction giant Boral has lost its bid to block a class action from running a ‘novel’ argument that shareholders suffered loss because of natural fluctuations in share price, rather than as a direct result of alleged continuous disclosure breaches.