Clayton Utz

Pasta distributor Conga Foods is challenging a ruling that dashed its bid to register its ‘La Famiglia Rana’ trade mark in Australia.

The High Court has granted special leave to hear a first-of-its-kind dispute over a number of airplane engines leased by the beleaguered Virgin Airlines, which may result in the airline’s administrators using company funds to cover the costs of shipping the engines back to Florida.

Swiss drug giant Novartis has secured an injunction temporarily blocking drug maker Pharmacor from launching a generic version of the company’s top-selling MS drug Gilenya in Australia.

A judge has found that a clause in Apple’s agreement with developers requires that Fortnite game developer Epic Games litigate a closely watched competition lawsuit against the tech giant on its home turf. 

Volkswagen has lost its challenge to a landmark $125 million Dieselgate penalty handed down by a judge who lambasted a $75 million fine proposed by the ACCC as “manifestly inadequate”, in what ACCC chair Rod Sims told Lawyerly was a “turning point” for the regulator to push for higher fines.

A Johnson & Johnson unit wants the High Court to review the Full Federal Court’s rejection of its challenge to a landmark class action ruling that found the company’s pelvic mesh implants were defective and that it failed to adequately warn about their risks.

The judge overseeing sports presenter Erin Molan’s defamation case against the Daily Mail won’t force Molan to be questioned ahead of trail about a segment on Nine’s The Footy Show in which she laughed at an off-colour joke, saying the  publisher was “fishing”.

A judge has slugged the Commonwealth Bank of Australia with a $7 million fine in proceedings brought by ASIC for excessive interest charged to thousands of overdraft customers, but noted the penalty amounted to profits from just six hours of operation for the Big Four bank.

A judge has refused to summarily dismiss proceedings by collapsed construction group JM Kelly against its former accountant, finding it was an issue for trial whether he caused the company to continue operating despite financial issues leading to its liquidation.

A judge who oversaw a 39-day trial in 2018 in multiple class actions against S&P Global may be asked by the ratings agency to step down from hearing another class action alleging systemic defects in its ratings systems.