Approving coal mine projects is not the business of courts, the Morrison government has argued in its challenge to a landmark class action judgment that found it had a duty of care to protect Australian children from the effects of climate change.
Google has urged a court to stay a competition lawsuit brought by Epic Games, saying new evidence showed the Fortnite game maker would not be disadvantaged if the case was heard in California, as the Full Court found it would in a similar challenge by Apple.
The Murray Darling Basin Authority can’t rely on defences claiming it is a “public or other authority” to limit the liability of a class action brought over alleged negligent water management, an appeals court has found.
Two shareholders of failed steel giant Arrium have told the High Court that granting their bid to grill former directors of the company would not be an abuse of process because it was in the public interest to “expose” the management of the defunct business.
Qantas has lost its second attempt to delay a hearing on further relief pending an appeal in its outsourcing spat with the Transport Workers Union, with a judge finding a stay would prejudice the union more than the airline.
Qantas has filed a bid to delay a hearing on penalty after a judge found the airline outsourced ground operations partly to prevent employees engaging in industrial action, but the TWU has said a stay would be “unfair” to 1,600 former ground staff.
Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting has failed to persuade a court to hold an expanded separate trial on the alleged wrongdoing of the mining magnate in a spat over the Hope Downs iron ore mine, with a judge finding the proposal could extend the already ten-year legal battle.
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority will soon make its case directly to an appeals court that it can rely on defences limiting its liability to farmers in a class action alleging negligent oversight of the river system, a question that could have implications for other climate change cases against government agencies.
Leading Australian oil and gas producer Santos is accused of misleading the market by “greenwashing” its environmental credentials in a landmark shareholder-led lawsuit filed in the Federal Court.
Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting has avoided a discovery order that would cost an estimated $3 million to comply with, with a judge instead ordering that limited discovery be given to two Rinehart children in an ongoing family dispute over titles for the Hope Down iron ore mine.