Victoria

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has vowed to limit the role of local councils in planning decisions after the state’s anti-corruption board delivered a scathing report finding property developer John Woodman “bought influence” from councillors in Melbourne and two state MP’s.

The ACCC has raised concerns about Coles plans to acquire milk processing plants from Saputo, with the regulator saying the transaction — marking the first time a supermarket chain has ventured into the processing market — would be a “major structural change”.

A court has found that residents living near an allegedly loud and foul-smelling Graincorp oilseed factory in rural Victoria can band together to bring a class action suit.

A court has ordered Google to provide former Victorian Labor candidate Nurul Khan with account information and IP addresses relating to an anonymous email sent to the ALP last November, which led to his disendorsement by the party just two weeks before the state election. 

Beach Energy has struck back at a shareholder class action over alleged misleading earnings projections for its oil and gas reserves in the Cooper Basin, saying it had reasonable grounds for its rosy predictions for production.

A federal court judge has slammed Australia’s use of makeshift hotel detention centres as lacking “ordinary human decency”, but ruled they are not illegal in the case of a Kurdish refugee who was held for 14 months in two Melbourne hotels. 

A judge has adjourned a trial in a case brought by junior doctors seeking to recoup alleged unpaid overtime, despite noting his annoyance over the applicants’ “180 degree turn” on the question of whether the hearing should await delivery of judgment in a related case.

A judge has found that preliminary discovery does not extend to information about the likely recovery of a claim, rejecting an argument that the relevant rule allows prospective plaintiffs to test whether litigation will be “worthwhile”.

GetSwift director Joel Macdonald still has not been served almost a year after his former Melbourne Demons teammate James Strauss filed a $15 million lawsuit against him, with a judge adjourning yet another substituted service application.

Oil company Lighthouse Corporation has lost its bid to force East Timor to jump through hoops to access a suite of documents in a $328 million dispute over a failed fuel supply agreement, but has succeeded in keeping the documents out of public hands amid fears by its director for his safety.