Contracts

Retail Food Group has filed an application to shut down a class action by former franchisees of its Michel’s Patisserie chain who claim to have suffered losses stemming from changes to the franchise giant’s supply chain in 2015 and 2016.

Vocational education provider Box Hill Institute has agreed to pay $33 million to settle a class action by students who allege the diploma they obtained through the institute did not give them the knowledge or training needed to obtain a commercial pilot’s licence. 

Scenic Tours has been hit with a second class action over a series of European cruises that went ahead in 2018 despite a record-breaking drought that saw river levels drop so low they became impassable.

A judge has rejected a bid for his recusal from a contractual dispute in which Maddocks is acting, despite his personal friendship and holiday plans with the law firm’s CEO. 

Russia’s recent challenge to the Commonwealth’s allegedly unreasonable decision to terminate its lease to build a new embassy in Canberra could be heard in early 2023, amid concerns key witnesses could soon be kicked out of the country altogether.

Jim’s Group has paid a $24,420 fine after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission accused the company of breaching the Franchise Code and misleading a franchisee.

The University of Melbourne has hit back at the Fair Work Ombudsman’s allegations that it took adverse action against two casual academics to prevent them from claiming payment for extra hours worked, but admitted a supervisor penned an email referring to one of them as a “self-entitled Y-genner”.

Embattled investment firm Linchpin Capital has sued auditors Grant Thornton and Moore Stephens for signing off on the compliance plan for a registered fund that allegedly used investor money to advance the company’s business interests and line its directors’ pockets.

A judge has struck out claims accusing Corelogic of unauthorised scraping of confidential information from building information provider BCI Media’s copyright-protected leads platform, finding the case was “defective and deficient in many respects”.

Mineralogy has secured unconditional court approval to drop one of the “battle fronts” in its war with CITIC units Sino Iron and Korean Steel, with a judge refusing to impose a “price” on the discontinuance in the form of an undertaking not to revive the claims.