Law Firms

Thomson Geer has recruited new partners from Gadens and Holding Redlich to strengthen the law firm’s IP and corporate benches.

Former Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming has lost a bid to split her defamation case against state party leader John Pesutto, after a judge expressed his reluctance to have the court sort through her claim that publications by Pesutto carried 67 different defamatory imputations against her, including that she is a neo-Nazi. 

A former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner has sued the firm for denying him retirement payments for moving to alleged competitor DLA Piper and for his alleged involvement in the firm’s tax leaks crisis.

A shareholder class action against livestock exporter Wellard over a profit downgrade following its $300 million initial public offering in 2015 has settled for $23 million. 

A professor from Texas has no business offering an opinion on the meaning of One Nation senator Pauline Hanson’s exhortation to the Greens party deputy leader that she “piss off back to Pakistan”, a court has heard.

Ashurst has bolstered its Sydney real estate practice with the appointment of a new partner, who joins from King & Wood Mallesons. 

SkyCity has reached an agreement with AUSTRAC in proceedings alleging it allowed $4 billion in suspicious transactions, setting aside $73 million to cover penalty and costs.

A judge has signed off on a bill that brings the total settlement administration costs in a class action against Johnson & Johnson unit De Puy to over $13 million, amid a push by some judges to open the settlement administration gig up to competition.

Still in the dark about insurance coverage and seeking to stem the flow of cash, two class actions against Heritage Care and St Basil’s over COVID-19 outbreaks have been shelved pending the outcome of criminal cases against the Victorian aged care providers, in a decision the judge said “wouldn’t gladden the hearts of group members”. 

Construction giant Boral has lost its bid to block a class action from running a ‘novel’ argument that shareholders suffered loss because of natural fluctuations in share price, rather than as a direct result of alleged continuous disclosure breaches.