Law Firms

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. 

Group members in a class action against ANZ over credit card interest charges that settled for $57.5 million are expected to take home at least 60 per cent of the settlement sum after legal fees and a funder’s commission are deducted.

In a win for ASIC, the Federal Court has found that non-bank lender Firstmac Limited breached the design and distribution obligations, introduced in 2021, by marketing a managed investment scheme that could be unsuitable for customers’ financial needs. 

HWL Ebsworth and a former capital partner have both appealed a ruling that found the partner was invalidly expelled in 2020 but that his partnership had been dissolved from the day he sued his former firm. 

The Fair Work Commission has ruled that an electrician with BlueScope Steel was unfairly dismissed following a complaint by a coworker who did not give evidence to the commission, finding that it was “abundantly unfair” for the complaint to be advanced as hearsay evidence.

A judge has declined to toss most of the claims brought against a crypto trading company by a former director, despite finding the director’s case “is not an easy one”.

A law firm partner who alleges a Melbourne solicitor failed to properly advise him on a share sale agreement with Slater & Gordon in 2014 declined assistance before signing a term sheet that outlined he could not sell his shares in the firm for three years, a court has heard.

Food giant Goodman Fielder has won freezing orders against a former employee who the company suspects of a $10 million fraud and issued a slew of subpoenas to betting firms the employee holds accounts with.

Law firm Holding Redlich has been hit with proceedings over invoices totalling more than $334,000 by an ex-client who says the firm provided no cost agreement and made no cost disclosure over the course of an eight-month retainer. 

An appeals court has rejected a challenge by a woman who said she was given negligent advice by her lawyers about two settlement offers which she rejected, finding that she would not have taken advice to accept the offers in any case.