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Sparke Helmore has recruited a Brisbane-based partner from Holding Redlich with corporate and dispute resolution experience.

A lawyer behind a settled class action against the previous government’s Robodebt disaster has called for the case to be reconvened in the wake of a report that blasted the “crude and cruel” scheme, as Government Service Minister Bill Shorten suggests victims could sue individual Coalition ministers.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has set its sights on data brokers such as Equifax and Corelogic amid concerns about harms to consumers from their information collecting practices.

A damning report by a royal commission into the former federal government’s Robodebt scheme has recommended several individuals be referred for civil action or criminal prosecution, finding it was “a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal”.

The NSW Labor Party has agreed to drop its case against law firm Holding Redlich for providing allegedly negligent advice over a $100,000 illegal cash donation delivered in an Aldi shopping bag.

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 Federal Court judge who recently ordered new pleadings in a copyright case against CoreLogic is the latest judge fed up with plaintiffs pleading innumerable alternatives that waste court resources, add to the length of trials and extend the wait time for judgments.

A judge has knocked back a bid by the Australian Federal Police to have an upcoming trial over an allegedly defamatory press conference run on a stripped-back ‘first impression’ basis.

The government of Peru has appealed a ruling that rejected its bid to trade mark the alcoholic spirit pisco, after an IP Australia delegate found Aussie consumers think of more than Peruvian pisco when they see the name.

Despite a global economic slowdown Australian lawyers won’t face layoffs like their US counterparts, legal insiders say, but some who cashed in during the COVID-19 talent drought shouldn’t expect to see raises any time soon.