Gilbert + Tobin

Metal mining company Fortescue hired private investigators to spy on former employees who created green iron start-up Element Zero, sifting through their mail, taking photos of their children and following them to Kmart, a court has heard. 

Lawyers are allowed to take a cut from a class action settlement or judgment under a so-called solicitors’ common fund order, the Full Federal Court has ruled, saying they are a permissive use of the court’s power.

The Australian provider of the Kraken crypto exchange has told a court that its margin trading product is not a credit facility, rejecting the corporate regulator’s “overly broad” definition of the word ‘credit’. 

Start-up Element Zero claims Fortescue did not disclose material information to the court when it obtained search orders in its case alleging “industrial scale misuse” of the mining company’s confidential information.

A judge has ordered SkyCity to pay a $67 million penalty in AUSTRAC’s case alleging it allowed $4 billion in suspicious transactions, finding it was an “appropriate” sum, even when compared with the $450 million fine handed to Crown last July.

Fortescue has brought legal action against start-up Element Zero and three former employees, alleging “industrial scale misuse” of the Western Australian mining company’s confidential information.

Medicinal cannabis company Vitura Health has won its bid for orders restricting the access of a software partner to its IT systems after an alleged hack.

While it was unfair for a judge to pick Gilbert + Tobin to run a class action against Jaguar Land Rover on the condition that it lower its funding rate, the judge was entitled to consider the law firm’s experience in a similar case against Toyota, an appeals court has said in its reasons. 

A judge has rejected Aristocrat’s bid for orders requiring competitor Light & Wonder to hand over documents to be placed “in an envelope” for speedy production should its appeal of a decision ordering that it produce the documents to Aristocrat for possible trade secrets suit fail.

A New South Wales developer’s competition case against NSW Ports over a ports privatisation agreement looks bound for the High Court after a judge found a related ACCC proceeding did not bar it from bringing the case, which will challenge a Full Court finding that the ports operator was shielded by derivative Crown immunity.