The chief of the Australian Defence Force has been given the opportunity to put on further evidence after a judge said he would otherwise order that material provided to a war crimes inquiry by Ben Roberts-Smith be produced in the war veteran’s defamation case against three news publishers.
A judge has stopped short of rejecting new claims in the Robodebt class action despite “obvious errors” in the allegations, but has sent the applicants back to the drawing board and warned them the matter would not proceed as a “dog’s breakfast”.
A judge has dismissed a class action accusing Government ministers of misfeasance in public office over the practice of securing Nauruan visas for those detained on the island.
The Commonwealth has told a court it will not sit down for mediation talks with One Nation chief-of-staff James Ashby as he seeks to recoup almost $4 million in legal costs spent in a dropped sexual harassment case against former House speaker Peter Slipper.
An impending three-week trial for the Robodebt class action may be in danger due to stage 4 lockdown measures in place in Victoria to control a second wave of coronavirus cases, with the top lawyer for the class telling the court he might need to step down due to homeschooling obligations if the lockdown overlaps with the trial.
An appeals court has been urged to uphold a judge’s $125 million penalty against Volkswagen in the ACCC’s case over the car maker’s emissions cheating, with a court-appointed contradictor saying the judge was “starved” of the information he required to assess whether a $75 million agreement brokered by the consumer watchdog was reasonable.
The Australian Taxation Office has won its appeal of a ruling that found that a 15 per cent ‘Backpacker’s Tax’ imposed on holders of Australian working holiday visas was unlawful.
A judge has narrowed discovery in a class action against the Commonwealth of Australia over allegedly unlawful Robodebt payments, criticising the lead applicants for persisting with an approach to discovery that “was not a particularly helpful one”.
The Federal Government will not challenge a ruling in a class action brought on behalf of live exporters which found a total ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia in 2011 was “capricious and unreasonable”.
Australia’s corporate watchdog has lost its bid to obtain Ashurst’s advice to Australia and New Zealand Banking Group about potentially illegal bank fees “for now”, but a judge has signalled that this may not be the end of the matter.