The High Court has agreed to hear NSW Forestry’s challenge to a decision that found it could be sued by an environmental group for allegedly breaching environmental laws, a case that raises questions about standing in civil enforcement proceedings.
A environmental group has lost its challenge to the extension of the Mount Pleasant open cut coal mine in NSW operated by MACH Energy, with a judge finding the planning commission considered greenhouse emissions and did not merely pay “lip service” to the issue.
The Australian Conservation Foundation has reached an agreement with Woodside Energy to drop proceedings over the company’s Scarborough gas project in Western Australia, which alleged the $16.5 billion joint venture could not go ahead until its climate impacts were assessed.
An environmental group has argued a fracking project in the Northern Territory was approved before its risks were adequately scrutinized, taking advantage of changes in the law that allow “interested persons” to seek administrative review of government decisions.
A court has granted Rio Tinto unit Energy Resources Australia an interim stay to allow it to contest the government’s decision not to renew its lease for the Jabiluka uranium mine in the Northern Territory.
A judge has ordered Mercer Superannuation to pay $11.3 million for “reckless, if not deliberate” representations about so-called sustainable investment options that included investment in oil and gas companies, including BHP and Origin Energy.
Seeking to quash search orders won by metals company Fortescue against former employees who founded a green iron rival, a lawyer for the start-up has said three terabytes of data were indiscriminately copied, including confidential, privileged and irrelevant material.
A shareholder has filed an application for preliminary discovery against KMPG and water treatment company Phoslock as she weighs a possible class action over the company’s past fraud and mismanagement.
A Greens senator has called for reducing a proposed immunity from climate disclosure litigation from three years to one after lawyers, including the NSW Bar Association, blasted the moratorium. But some law firms say the immunity doesn’t go far enough and should shield companies and their officers from continuous disclosure-related claims.
The Environmental Defenders Office has replaced its chair and appointed a former judge to its board as it undergoes a review of its processes in the wake of an unsuccessful case against Santos over the oil and gas company’s $5.6 billion Barossa pipeline.