Employment

A judge has questioned the Finance Sector Union’s idea to use a survey to gather evidence about 3,000 employees who claim the Commonwealth Bank of Australia failed to provide them with paid rest breaks for at least six years.

Virgin Australia will seek to throw out a case brought by former employees over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which a lawyer for Qantas and Jetstar, which are also named in the suit, said “breaks every pleading rule”.

Telco contractor BSA has won a bid to ringfence a $13 million capital raising from a $20 million settlement reached with group members in a Shine Lawyers-led class action accusing the company of misclassifying its workforce of technicians as independent contractors.

A judge has told journalist Tegan George to rework her sex discrimination claims against Network Ten, following an interlocutory stoush over her claims that the network’s Canberra bureau, led by high profile political reporter Peter van Onselen and executive editor Anthony Murdoch “was a workplace that was hostile to women.”

Melbourne-based aged care facility St Basil’s has been hit with nine charges by the state’s workplace safety watchdog over a COVID-19 outbreak that resulted in 45 resident deaths.

A judge has tossed a class action brought by a self-represented applicant against Wilson Security, saying class actions should not be run without lawyers.

In its first decision applying a landmark High Court judgment redefining the test for when a worker is employed, the Federal Court has found a sessional lecturer for a higher education institution was an employee.

The conduct of Corrs Chambers Westgarth in the preparation of an ostensibly independent expert report in a trade secrets case “must not be repeated”, a judge has said, throwing out the expert’s evidence as potentially tainted by the law firm’s involvement.

The former boss of embattled tech company Nuix is asking for “special treatment” by arguing he is owed $183 million in options under a 2008 agreement, a judge has heard on the first day of trial in the ex-CEO’s case.

Melbourne-based hard assets investment manager Merricks Capital has won undertakings from its ex-managing director and two former employees who defected to an investment boutique run by financial commentator Peter Switzer and his son Marty.