Sydney’s ongoing COVID-19 lockdown has created “logistical” difficulties delaying the release of a long awaited judgment in the ACCC’s consumer law case against collapsed private college Phoenix Institute, which was accused of misleading students through the marketing of its courses.
National Australia Bank has admitted in court it broke the law by charging fees it was not entitled to collect, but the bank and the corporate regulator are $25 million apart on what is an appropriate penalty.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has objected to swathes of evidence from the Commissioner of Taxation being included in an upcoming trial over privilege, claiming the material oversteps a process put in place by the court to only examine a small sample of documents.
Trial in war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation case over articles accusing him of war crimes has been adjourned until November in light of the current COVID-19 lockdown in Sydney, which a judge noted could be extended beyond the month of August.
A judge has found artificial intelligence can be named as the inventor on a patent application, setting aside an IP Australia finding that allowing a machine to be considered an inventor would render the Patents Act incapable of “sensible operation”.
A green activist who filed a group proceeding alleging the government failed to disclose the impacts of climate change to investors in sovereign bonds does not have a common interest with group members and should have her lawsuit declassed, a court has heard.
A witness for two Nine-owned newspapers sued by Ben Roberts-Smith has been accused of fabricating a story that the war veteran kicked his step-uncle off a cliff before ordering him to be shot to gain compensation from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has appealed a judge’s decision throwing out its competition case over an agreement for the privatisation of two NSW ports, calling the case “a matter of significance for the Australian economy”.
A communications device was planted on an unarmed Afghan villager who was allegedly murdered by former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, a court overseeing the accused war criminal’s defamation trial has heard.
Canberra has been floated as a potential new venue for the trial in former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation case as Sydney’s COVID-19 outbreak worsens, but a judge has said moving the hearing created “real difficulties”.