Murray Goulburn’s ex-CFO Bradley Hingle has quietly settled a case brought by the consumer watchdog over the dairy co-operative’s allegedly misleading promises about farmgate milk prices, with the former executive agreeing to stay away from the dairy industry for three years.
Two group members of a resolved class action over managed investment schemes operated by agribusiness Great Southern Group are bound by the settlement deed to repay loans they took out with the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, despite the severe constraints the settlement placed on individual defences, a judge has ruled.
Consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser has been ordered by the Federal Court to remove all in-store advertising for its Strepfen throat lozenges after a successful interlocutory application by rival iNova Pharmaceuticals.
Ophthalmic diagnostic device manufacture ObjectiVision can’t file amended claims for damages following a trial in a copyright and contract case against the University of Sydney, with a judge saying the school would be “severely prejudiced” if the new claims were allowed.
The publisher of The Daily Telegraph has won its bid to bring a defence of justification against claims by actor Geoffrey Rush that the newspaper defamed him in articles alleging the actor behaved “inappropriately” during a production of King Lear at the Sydney Theatre Company.
A barrister for a class action against Radio Rentals has told the Federal Court the company’s “strange” lease contracts may have been worded solely to avoid its obligations under the Uniform Consumer Credit Code.
A judge has given the green light to a settlement of seven class actions against ratings agency S&P Global over toxic financial products, saying despite an “extraordinarily large” litigation funding fee the deal was a “significant vindication” of group member claims.
The lead applicant in an investor class action against Fitch Ratings will get its hands on internal reports detailing why the agency assigned a Triple A rating to Sigma Finance Corporation ahead of its 2008 collapse, and whether it could have predicted the fall of the $27 billion investment fund.
Treasury Wine Estates has gone on the offensive in an intellectual property dispute with Melbourne-based “wine in a can” maker Barokes, launching court proceedings alleging the company’s patents are invalid and claiming it made “unjustified threats” against the Penfolds maker.
Australia’s largest potato wholesaler Mitolo Group has hit back at allegations by the ACCC that its contracts with growers were unfair, telling a court the terms were open to negotiation and were necessary to protect the company’s intellectual property.