Victoria

A Victorian construction company is fighting a bid by a creditor it says should not be allowed to “come out of the woodwork” and take over the winding up application of a company that has since been deregistered.

A Melbourne University engineering professor who was sacked for sending intimate messages to a PhD student has been reinstated after the Fair Work Commission found he was unfairly dismissed.

In the third decision approving an unaltered group costs order at the resolution of a class action, a judge has OK'd an $85 million settlement by ANZ, representing a $21 million payday for Maurice Blackburn.

Retirement village operator Lifestyle Communities has foreshadowed an appeal after a tribunal ruled that exit fees charged to departing residents were void.

Melbourne developer SK Developments has won freezing orders against a builder, with a judge finding there was a danger that a $1.98 million judgment could be avoided. 

Property investment firm Charter Hall has sold its Bunnings Warehouse in the southeast Melbourne suburb of Clyde North for $44 million, in an off-market deal that reinforces the strength of retail real estate.

The Victorian Bar has hit back at media reporting around the management of commercial litigation by Australian courts which singled out judges of the Supreme Court, saying “statistics never tell the whole story”.

A judge hearing a dispute over a lot in Victoria's Merrifield Business Park has found that the Competition and Consumer Act's bar on contracts that substantially lessen competition does not apply to a market in land.

The state of Victoria has attacked the “magical thinking” of a class action over its COVID-19 hotel quarantine debacle, as the applicants seek to plead an alternative case holding the state responsible for a wave of infections.

A court has appointed provisional liquidators to Melbourne developer Lion Property Group after hearing that $120 million of investor money was not properly accounted for.