A judge has raised concerns about bids to declass group proceedings over alleged business interruption losses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the thousands of policyholders who registered for the class actions might reap more from the cases than making claims directly with their insurers.
The judge overseeing AUSTRAC’s case against Star Entertainment has questioned the parties’ agreement to refer questions of fact and law to a former judge for determination, rather than an anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing expert.
The owner of a major coal power station in Western Australia has lost its bid for an inquiry into alleged misconduct by the receivers of collapsed Griffin Coal after they tried to avoid obligations under coal supply agreements, with a judge saying the allegations were “relatively trivial”.
A three-year court battle over PepsiCo’s Monster Munch trade mark has been resolved, with Monster Energy negotiating the removal of some beverage products that would have been covered by the mark.C
The High Court has declined to step in after Hells Angels’ award of $78,000 in damages for online marketplace Redbubble’s infringement of its trade marks was slashed to just $100, bringing to an end an IP fight that has stretched on for nearly a decade.
The corporate regulator is on a winning streak in its greenwashing cases, with a judge rejecting Active Super’s attempt to qualify its “unequivocal” statements about limiting its investment in companies connected to gambling and coal mining.
The co-owners of Pacific Werribee shopping centre in Victoria have largely won their bid for insurance documents as they weigh a second case against collapsed construction company, allegedly worth up to $335 million.
Lawyers are in no immediate danger of losing their jobs to AI, according to a leading law firm, which has found that asking large language models legal questions you don’t already know the answers to is risky business.
Challenging a ruling that it breached its continuous disclosure obligations, ANZ has argued on appeal that it did not need to inform the ASX of a bailout by the underwriters of a 2015 institutional share placement because the information didn’t go to the fundamental value of its shares.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, lawyers have said in attacking a report to Parliament that recommends abolishing amendments adding a fault element to the continuous disclosure regime for ASIC cases but requiring shareholders to clear the higher bar in class actions.