A court has set aside former Federal Minister for Resources Keith Pitt’s decision to develop a nuclear waste facility in Napandee in South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, saying a fair-minded observer may have perceived that Pitt was biased in selecting the site over two other proposed locations.
A judge has rejected a bid by the administrator of a collapsed company to claw back a payment of security for costs made in earlier litigation, which he found did not give rise to a relevant security interest.
A Federal Court judge overseeing a class action against IG Markets over risky financial products has questioned whether courts should take a “more robust” approach to avoid the “nonsense” of competing class actions, amid the threat of a second class action being filed in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
A PricewaterhouseCoopers partner who is suing the accounting firm for giving him the boot over a tax leaks scandal has won an interim injunction restraining the board of partners from forcing him to leave before his case is heard.
A judge has upheld findings from IP Australia that South Korean biotech ToolGen’s genome editing technology CRISPR is not patentable, but given the company one more chance to seek to amend its application.
A judge has ruled insurer Vero can be added to a class action over allegedly combustible cladding, finding removal of the cladding could be considered “property damage” under the wording of an insurance contract with cladding manufacturer Fairview.
Norton Rose Fulbright has snagged a class action lawyer with decades of US legal experience and elevated an arbitration expert who worked at a New York white shoe law firm to be partners in its Sydney and Perth offices.
A judge has found the state of NSW liable to compensate the lead plaintiffs in a class action brought on behalf of small businesses over the “substantial and unreasonable” interference caused by the construction of Sydney’s $3 billion light rail network, but he flagged “significant problems” in applying his findings to thousands of potential group members.
A union representing 54 junior doctors alleging they were systemically underpaid has defeated a bid by NSW Health to stay its case until the determination of a related class action on behalf of tens of thousands of medical officers.
A judge has warned the NSW government that the court does not make orders “subject to [its] internal policies” after the state failed to comply with orders to hand over documents in a class action over police strip searches.