Mining giant Rio Tinto faces a potential class action over allegations of sex discrimination and sexual harassment at mine sites in Australia, following a report that made “disturbing” findings about the company’s workplace culture.
A Melbourne car dealer has largely lost a consumer law case against Honda Australia over its decision to abandon a dealership model, but is set to receive compensation for over 2,600 new vehicles it could have sold if Honda hadn’t ended its five-year contract early.
A former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner has brought defamation proceedings over public statements he alleges falsely linked him to the tax leaks scandal that rocked the professional services firm last year.
Law firm Atanaskovic Hartnell has argued that its alleged failure to provide updated fee estimates while acting for a company associated with investor Nicholas Bolton did not mean he is immune from paying fair and reasonable legal fees assessed at $308,940.
Drug giant Glaxo has succeeded in extending the term for a patent for a drug that treats chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, with a delegate rejecting arguments from law firm Banki Haddock Fiora that the application was incorrectly based on a patent that was no longer valid because of amendments.
Hearing arguments Tuesday on whether lawyers should be permitted to earn contingency fees in Federal Court class actions, judges on a Full Court bench appeared to lean in favour of allowing so-called solicitors’ common fund orders, rejecting claims they are “unjust”.
Two units of insurer IAG have been hit with a class action for allegedly misleading hundreds of thousands of home owners insurance customers about loyalty discounts.
Legal representatives for a company that dobs in fellow cartel members will not generally be permitted in the room when the competition regulator interviews directors, employees and others seeking derivative immunity from prosecution, under proposed amendments to the ACCC’s immunity policy.
Noumi and ASIC are challenging a finding that the food manufacturer waived legal professional privilege over a PricewaterhouseCoopers report commissioned by its lawyers at Ashurst by disclosing the report during an ASIC investigation.
A judge has left open the question of whether a line of authority relating to the materiality of information under the continuous disclosure regime could be relevant to a stoush between collapsed engineering firm Forge Group and Clough Group, saying the decisions may apply to cases alleging breaches of the insider trading provisions of the Corporations Act.