Western Australia

Maurice Blackburn has defeated a former client’s bid for summary judgment in an “unusual case” alleging the firm gave him bad advice concerning a personal injury claim against the state of Western Australia over assaults suffered in prison.

Mining engineering company Destec has won its bid to use evidence produced in a dispute with Mineral Resources in considering whether to bring a new case against its former director over a lucrative transportation system.

A former director of defunct mining and exploration company Continental Coal has been sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment for failing to act in good faith in performing his directors’ duties in relation to $1 million in bridging finance.  

A former executive assistant of accused Ponzi schemer Chris Marco is facing charges linked to an alleged $29.5 million fraud against investors.

Law firm Levitt Robinson has filed a second class action against the Western Australian government on behalf of inmates in the state’s Banksia Hill detention centre alleging unlawful disability and age discrimination.

International law firm HFW is expanding its Australian employment practice, hiring leading industrial relations, safety and employment law solicitor Simon Billing in Perth.

A judge has granted a discovery bid by two of Gina Rinehart’s children as a long-running fight over ownership of a valuable mining tenement nears trial, and has rejected her company’s argument that they were solely responsible for dragging out a dispute over documents.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has derided former Attorney-General Christian Porter for reportedly leading Clive Palmer’s $300 billion arbitration claim against the federal government.

Western Australia’s class action regime has come into effect, after the state became the fifth in Australia to allow representative proceedings last year.

Acciona has hit back at a suit brought by the entity in charge of a $511 million waste-to-energy plant south of Perth alleging it was unlawfully shut out of the project site, with the Spanish infrastructure giant saying the entity had no “unlimited right of access.”