Special

Workplace health and safety lawyer Jane Hall is the newest addition to Holding Redlich, boosting the firm’s regulatory expertise.

Leading lawyers have welcomed a new practice note in the Commercial Court division of the Victorian Supreme Court, including a “rigid framework” to cut down on interlocutory disputation which is expected to benefit commercial class action litigants, but some say the note “should have gone further” to compel discovery from defendants.

A hearing in a class action to determine the extent of lost sales suffered by cattle exporters following a ban on live exports has been set down for April next year, making the case the oldest unresolved class action on the Federal Court docket.

Cross-border technology expert Lisa Fitzgerald has joined Norton Rose Fulbright from Lander & Rogers, bringing her expertise in media, telecommunications, privacy and intellectual property to the firm.

A judge has questioned the relevance of an ex-Seven producer’s “sordid” evidence that the network rewarded him after using company funds to buy sex workers for the accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann, saying both sides had made strong arguments against his and Brittany Higgins’ credibility. 

A former Seven producer has given fresh evidence in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation trial that he was alarmed when the accused rapist purchased cocaine and sex workers and agreed to give an interview to Spotlight as long as he was not asked about the night at the centre of the allegations.

A judge presiding over a defamation case by Bruce Lehrmann on Thursday asked lawyers for the Seven Network to explain why it had taken eight months to hand over communications with the accused rapist in answer to a subpoena by Ten. 

Global firm K&L Gates has snagged two new partners for its corporate group from Holding Redlich, deepening its M&A and capital markets offering.

Johnson Winter Slattery has snagged a special counsel from Corrs Chambers Westgarth to meet heightened demand for advice on climate change, sustainability and ESG issues.

Network Ten has won a bid to reopen its defence in a defamation case brought by Bruce Lehrmann, just two days before a judge was set to deliver his decision, after a former producer at Seven claimed the accused rapist lied about leaking thousands of pages of text messages between Brittany Higgins and her former partner.