King & Wood Mallesons

A lawsuit by the liquidators of Sargon Capital alleges law firm King & Wood Mallesons “refused or neglected” a demand to return over $540,000 in alleged unfair preference payments and should have known the fintech was insolvent when the payments were made.

The last remaining class action against the Department of Defence over the use of alleged toxic firefighting foam at a military base in Jervis Bay has settled for $22 million, from which $5 million will be deducted for legal costs. 

A judge from the Supreme Court of Victoria has been selected to lead the successor to the troubled Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which will be abolished following allegations the former government appointed political allies with no expertise.

The High Court has declined to hear an appeal by Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel refinery over a decision ordering it pay $26.6 million for natural gas charges.

Real estate investment trust NorthWest can amend its pleadings in a lawsuit alleging one of the country’s largest unlisted healthcare property funds conspired to prevent it from acquiring a controlling stake, but has come up short in its bid to add to its claims against property giant Dexus.

CSIRO has won its bid to access samples of a wheat grain product with increased fibre, as it contemplates a possible patent infringement lawsuit against a South Australian food company.

A sacked Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills partner seeking $13 million in compensation from his former firm and Lendlease has been criticised for claiming that whistleblower protections introduced in 2019 “wouldn’t make sense” if they did not apply retroactively.

A judge has approved a $5 million class action settlement against payment processor Tyro over a service outage but has shredded the proposed funder payout and legal fees that would have comprised 60 per cent of the sum, calling the costs “outrageous”. 

A fed-up judge has vented his frustration with the problem of competing class actions in a move that appears to punish the second filed case against Medibank. But is he right that the courts are increasingly being asked to deal with duplicative proceedings? And was his order really all that drastic?

One of the two remaining class actions against the Department of Defence over the use of alleged toxic firefighting foam at military bases across the country has settled for $132.7 million on the eve of trial, with the final case going back to mediation.