Liquidators for collapsed forestry giant Gunns Plantations have lost a High Court appeal over $1.2 million in payments to a former supplier that confirmed the so-called peak indebtedness rule does not apply in Australian insolvency law.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has won its appeal against Employsure over alleged misleading Google advertisements, with the Full Federal Court upping the penalty against the specialist workplace relations consultancy from $1 million to $3 million.
Uber has won a strike-out bid in a lawsuit by drivers challenging their classification as independent contractors, with a judge finding the pleading was “self-evidently, uncommonly and irretrievably deficient.”
The family of late pastoralist Thomas Brinkworth can’t get security for costs from a landowner bringing a bushfire class action in South Australia, with a court ruling security was unnecessary under the class action rules in the state, which can bind all group members to an adverse costs order.
The Western Australia government has foreshadowed a strike-out application just one month after being hit with a class action on behalf of detainees in the state’s detention centres.
A class action against KPMG over the failure of six managed investment schemes for eucalyptus wood in Tasmania has settled its claims against former Tasmanian Premier Robin Gray.
A Sydney barrister who charged $349,360 after giving an estimate of $60,000 for work on a bankruptcy case has lost his bid for a costs review after his fee was slashed, with a judge finding his client could not make an informed choice about her representation.
Nuix has defeated a lawsuit by ex-CEO Edward Sheehy alleging he was owed $183 million in options under a 2008 agreement, with a judge finding the options could only be exercised if the company was sold.
Nine-owned Fairfax Media has been ordered to pay a $545,000 to a Papua New Guinea politician who sued the publisher for defamation over a series of articles published in the Australian Financial Review, which a judge found were “replete with errors and misrepresentations.”
A judge has thrown out a lawsuit by the maker of Raw C coconut water alleging a rival’s coconut water featuring a similar aqua blue packaging with images of palm fronds would confuse consumers.