From the ongoing saga of the high-profile Christian Porter action against the ABC to “backyard” litigation testing the serious harm bar, defamation cases made headlines in 2022, with winners and losers alike shelling out millions to lawyers to protect their reputations.
The state of Western Australia has been left with a $2 million legal bill for defending a defamation action by billionaire Clive Palmer and advancing cross-claims on behalf of premier Mark McGowan, which a judge blasted as “a futile exercise”.
A judge has signed off on a group costs order in class action against Allianz over add-on car insurance that will give plaintiff law firms Johnson Winter & Slattery and Maurice Blackburn no more than 25 per cent of any resolution in the case.
ASIC has lost a case accusing the Commonwealth Bank of Australia of hitting customers with $55 million in unauthorised fees, with a judge finding that nearly 1 million customers charged the fees should have known that even banks “sometimes make mistakes”.
A judge has refused to declare COVID-19 a force majeure event in a loss for Spanish infrastructure giant Acciona, which seeks to back out of a construction project for a $696 million Kwinana waste-to-energy plant.
The High Court has granted special leave to Irish insurer Zurich to challenge a decision allowing a class action over an allegedly defective New Zealand apartment block to proceed in the NSW Supreme Court.
Following the lead of its Victorian counterpart, the NSW Supreme Court has found that law firm Atanaskovic Hartnell cannot recover costs in self-represented litigation against a former client over unpaid legal invoices.
A judge has found that the University of Sydney unlawfully terminated the employment of a political economy lecturer who was fired for conduct that included showing students a slide of a Nazi swastika superimposed on the Israeli flag.
Property developer Deicorp has secured a win in a lawsuit brought by a Hong Kong real estate billionaire after Deicorp reneged on a $45 million property deal, with a judge finding the purchaser failed to properly nominate its special purpose vehicle under the contract for sale.
Two former executives of defunct electronics retailer Dick Smith have asked the High Court to hear their challenge to a $11.8 million damages award for approving a dividend payment the company could not afford.