Judges

An appeals court has taken Pitcher Partners to task in its appeal seeking to throw out a lawsuit over the accounting firm’s alleged involvement in race car driver Max Twigg’s misappropriation of $127 million from his family. 

Commonwealth Bank and other lenders of Arrium have filed for special leave to appeal to the High Court after losing their latest bid to make two directors liable for allegedly misleading them about loan drawdown notices ahead of the steel company’s $2.8 billion collapse. 

Despite a judge’s complaint that class action costs are generally “out of control”, the law firm that secured a $192.5 million settlement and earned about $25 million in fees in the Montara oil spill case has won approval for more fees — these ones incurred in a hearing to determine how the settlement spoils should be divided.

Dairy processor Lactalis Australia has been hit with a $950,000 penalty in the first proceedings against a company for breaches of the Dairy Code.

An appeals court has dismissed the appeal of Daniel Taylor, son of notorious former Kings Cross nightclub owner John Ibrahim, seeking to revive defamation claims over a 2019 article in The Sunday Telegraph which he claimed suggested he was a mobster. 

Shine Lawyers’ bid to recoup “exorbitant” interest on a loan it took out to run pelvic mesh class actions against Johnson & Johnson has raised new ethical dilemmas beyond the usual “sweaty palms and huge vexation” in most group proceedings, a judge has said.

Uber and the applicants in class actions against the car service will head into mediation later this year, and only group members who sign up to join the cases will get a chance to share in the proceeds of any settlement that results from the talks.

The liquidators of collapsed Sargon Capital have resolved their unfair preference case against King & Wood Mallesons over $540,000 in fees the law firm was paid for work advising the fintech before it went under.

A judge has ordered the owner of vitamin brand Life Botanics to refrain from “vilifying, denigrating, disparaging or mocking” rival JSHealth, owned by influencer Jessica Sepel.

A judge has hit former Network Ten political editor Peter van Onselen with costs, after finding he breached a non-disparagement clause in an agreement with the broadcaster by criticising his old employer in an article written for The Australian.