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The High Court has issued a ruling that significantly alters the playing field in domestic commercial arbitration, finding that proportionate liability defences can apply despite limitations on claimants joining third parties to disputes.

The tax office has asked the High Court to overturn a decision which found that payments made by Asahi Breweries-owned Schweppes to PepsiCo under agreements to sell brands such as Pepsi and Mountain Dew in Australia were not subject to a royalty withholding tax. 

The High Court has agreed to step in to resolve division among Australia’s courts on the question of power to make orders that exclude unregistered group members from class action settlements.

The High Court has taken up the ACCC’s boycott case against builder J Hutchinson and the controversial construction union, an appeal that gives the court the chance to clarify the standard for proving an anti-competitive arrangement.

The High Court has denied the special leave application of a Sydney concert promoter seeking a cut of the profits earned by Nine unit TEG Live for promoting a 2013 Australian tour with English-Irish boy band One Direction. In orders handed down on Thursday, the High Court declined promoter Mark Filby’s bid for review of…

A class action has lost its appeal to the High Court in a case alleging Advanta Seeds owed damages to farmers for the economic loss resulting from its negligence in producing contaminated grain sorghum seed, with the justices clarifying that a duty of care may be established only if responsibility is assumed.

A leading commercial barrister who was one the of the founding members of Banco Chambers has been appointed as a judge on the NSW Court of Appeal.

The High Court has been asked to overturn a Full Court decision finding lawyers can take a cut from a class action settlement under a solicitors’ common fund order and to finally settle the question of whether the court has the power to issue common fund orders at all.

The High Court is scheduled to hand down a judgment in a class action on Wednesday on the power of a product disclaimer to protect manufacturers from claims they owe a duty of care to protect purchasers from pure economic loss.

In submissions to the High Court, the applicant in a class action brought on behalf of Arrium shareholders against KMPG has attacked the Attorney-General’s argument that a contingency fee order is a neutral factor in assessing the accounting firm’s bid to move the case from Victoria.