Western Australia

Japanese oil company Inpex has lost its bid for a split trial in a dispute with insurers AIG Australia and Mitsui Sumitomo over coverage for litigation related to defects at the $45 billion Ichthys liquified natural gas project in the Northern Territory.

Hall & Wilcox has bolstered its Perth commercial practice with the appointment of a litigation partner and his team from boutique firm Summers Legal.

Spanish infrastructure giant Acciona has been sued by the entity in charge of a $511 million waste-to-energy plant south of Perth, which says it was unlawfully shut out of the project site after “commercial issues” arose between them.

The founding director of Perth-based exploration company Legacy Iron Ore Limited has been hit with a suspended sentence of three years imprisonment for stealing over $720,000 from the company.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has handed a permanent ban to a former financial advisor who pleaded guilty to taking $35,000 from his First Nations clients’ superannuation accounts.

The Western Australia government has foreshadowed a strike-out application just one month after being hit with a class action on behalf of detainees in the state’s detention centres.

Collapsed engineering firm Forge Group has defeated an appeal seeking to block its liquidators from bringing a case against engineering company Clough Limited for alleged insider trading during the 2013 sale of a $187 million stake in the company.

An appeals court has dismissed an appeal from two contractors who worked on Chevron’s Gorgon gas field project who allege they were underpaid over $130 million by the energy giant.

Mining company Downer EDI has won its bid to review documents between Alinta Energy and a superintendent who allegedly acted improperly in a spat over a $208 million solar gas hybrid project in the Pilbara region. 

Former president of the Melbourne Football Club and Clayton Utz veteran Glen Bartlett has lost a bid to keep his defamation case against four MFC board members in Western Australia, with a judge finding the “relevant characters overwhelmingly continue to live in Melbourne.”