Judges

The former CEO of failed electronics retailer Dick Smith should be held responsible for approving two dividend payments worth $28.5 million which the company could not afford to pay given it owed millions in unpaid bank loans and supplier debts, an appeals court has heard. 

The litigation funder backing two combustible cladding class actions has sold a third of its investment in the cases to a player in the nascent secondary market for class action financing.

Fighting a class action that claims the age pension discriminates against Indigenous Australians because of differences in life expectancy, the Commonwealth says the rate of welfare dependency among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders could impact the case.

Alleged war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith has won a bid to call a troop commander known as Person 81 in his defamation trial against Fairfax Media, despite the media company’s objections.

A French Bulldog breeder has won a defamation case over Facebook comments calling her business a ‘puppy farm’.

The Full Federal Court has rejected an Australian inventor’s appeal of a ruling that found three manufacturers of essential oil products did not infringe his patent because the oil was a “staple commercial product”.

Ernst & Young has settled all claims against it in a shareholder class action alleging the Big Four accounting firm and Pitcher Partners signed off on an overly rosy year-end financial report that failed to disclose risks and impairments associated with the law firm’s disastrous $1.2 billion acquisition of UK insurance claims company Quindell.

A judge has allowed three witnesses for HK Realway to give evidence by video link at an upcoming negligence trial against Thomson Geer, over protests from the firm, which said it would be inherently unfair.

Defunct financial advisory firm Dover Financial and its former director have taken ASIC to court seeking discovery as they mull a potential lawsuit against the corporate regulator.

The Twigg family has hit accounting firm Pitcher Partners with a lawsuit claiming it helped Max Twigg, race car driver and former owner of the Byron Bay Hotel, misappropriate $127.8 million in family trust money for himself.