Counselling app Lyf is suing smartphone maker Mintt for allegedly infringing on a trade mark it owns for the universal OK hand gesture, saying Mintt’s logo is substantially identical to Lyf’s registered mark.
A recent decision in ASIC’s case against ANZ has highlighted the potential risks of waiver of client legal privilege, with the Federal Court observing that the distinctions can be “fine”. While ANZ avoided having to disclose its legal advice to the regulator, the decision is a reminder of the potential pitfalls of referring to legal advice in correspondence, and that pleading a state of mind in litigation carries risks from a privilege perspective, says Hall & Wilcox partner Jacob Uljans.
Shine Lawyers is investigating two new class actions against Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac’s BT Funds Management over allegedly excessive insurance premiums, a week after filing a similar case against AMP’s life insurance arm.
Google and Facebook will face penalties of at least $10 million for breaches of a media bargaining code drafted by the ACCC that aims to create a “level playing field” between Australian media companies and the tech giants.
The operator of Dreamworld in Queensland has pleaded guilty to three charges over the 2016 deaths of four people on the theme park’s now demolished Thunder River Rapids ride.
Tile maker Ceramiche Caesar has prevailed in its challenge to a judge’s ruling allowing building products manufacturer Caesarstone to register two trade marks despite a finding that they were deceptively similar to one of its marks.
Global law firm DLA Piper has boosted its restructuring practice with the hire of former Ashurst partner Lionel Meehan for its Melbourne team, the firm’s fourth new hire in recent months.
AMP has been hit with a cliass action by a group of financial planners over changes to its buyer of last resort policy last year, which cut the number of authoried advisers and retreated from a promise to buy back their businesses at a price based on a set multiple.
A lawyer who argued his conduct towards a paralegal was not sexual harassment but a display of ardent affection akin to ‘Mr Darcy’ in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ has lost his appeal of a $170,000 judgment against him, with the Full Federal Court saying the case was “as far from a Jane Austen novel as it is possible to be”.
The litigation funder behind the class action over Banksia Securities’ collapse has admitted it misled a costs consultant retained to report to the court on the reasonableness of the fees in the case, but says its commission should not take a hit as a result because the misconduct occurred after the litigation settled against Banksia’s trustee for $64 million.