Lawyerly’s Litigation Firms of 2020 delivered significant victories for clients last year in bet-the-company matters, thriving in a tumultuous year that saw courts and litigants adapt to virtual trials and other new norms that are sure to outlast the COVID-19 pandemic.
Qantas has been hit with a test case to determine whether axing 2,000 ground staff and replacing them with “insecure” labour hire workers is unlawful.
Aircraft engineers for Qantas are challenging a ruling that the airline had no “genuine choice” when it stood them down in March during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Real estate investment giant Cromwell Property Group will not get the court’s help in pursuing a case of “unlawful association” against its largest shareholder, Singapore-based ARA Group, which has made a $518 million hostile takeover bid, and the family of Chinese billionaire Gordon Tang.
Qantas has praised a Federal Court judgment ruling that the airline had no “genuine choice” other than standing down its workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the judgment was a “victory for common sense”.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has secured a short-lived agreement by the Australian Federal Police not to look at the material seized in a controversial raid on the national broadcaster’s headquarters as it considers whether to take its battle with the agency to an appeals court.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has lost its challenge to an Australian Federal Police search warrant authorising a raid on the broadcaster’s Sydney headquarters last year.