Employment

Fund manager Pendal Group has fended off calls to produce documents two months out from trial in a case by a portfolio manager who alleges he was threatened with termination while on stress leave, and later made redundant.

The Fair Work Commission has upheld the firing of a Melbourne University professor who was found to have pursued an inappropriate personal relationship with a former employee who later complained she had been “groomed”.

A sex discrimination case by the only female partner at global tech research company Information Services Group has been discontinued after a judge panned the “ludicrous” number of witnesses expected to give evidence.

Car electronics company Directed Electronics has challenged a ruling that partially dismissed its case over the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets by a former manager, who was found to have pocketed $3.6 million in commissions through a secret agreement with rival Hanhwa.

A court has heard that a director at office leasing company Cushman & Wakefield who accepted a job with a competitor could lose a $1.3 million sign-on bonus if the case by her former employer is not promptly resolved.

A judge has rejected a Federal Circuit and Family Court judge’s decision to transfer a PhD student’s Fair Work lawsuit against the University of Western Australia to the Federal Court because his court does not have the proper resources to consider it. 

The applicant in an underpayments class action against telecommunications contractor Tandem — which has been stayed since the company entered administration — has asked a court to abandon the case.

The judge overseeing a sex discrimination and harassment lawsuit by the only female partner at global technology research company Information Services Group has lashed out at the parties for proposing to call a parade of 16 witnesses and estimating the trial would take three weeks.

Mining services company Thiess has settled a class action by fly-in fly-out workers who alleged they were not paid for time spent on the bus travelling home from a Pilbara-based liquefied natural gas processing plant owned by Woodside Energy.

Baby food producer Bellamy’s has hit back at a $400,000 lawsuit by its former chief executive officer, saying she was sacked because of “poor financial performance” and not because she complained about sex discrimination.