Companies

A judge overstepped in throwing out a class action against two National Australia Bank units over alleged MySuper mismanagement because of a carveout in the Victorian Supreme Court Act which bars class actions involving trust property, an appeals court has heard.

A judge hearing a price-fixing case against steel giant BlueScope has overruled an objection to the ACCCs barrister's allegedly excessive "eye-rolling" and "scathing and sarcastic" manner during a cross-examination in which the company's general manager was accused of lying under oath.

A retired financial planner has filed a lawsuit accusinf AMP of using “unfair tactics” to avoid coughing up close to a million dollars allegedly owed under a buyout option exercised in November 2019.

Apple has been hit with a lawsuit alleging iPhone and iPad devices sold in Australia since at least 2014 and equipped with Touch and Face ID technology infringe two patents held by a non-practicing entity.

Pharmaceutical giants Merck Sharpe & Dohme and Pfizer have resolved a long-running intellectual property dispute over a 2015 patent owned by Pfizer for a pneumococcal vaccine.

Nine Network, Seven Network and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation have won a temporary injunction barring the Civil Aviation Safety Authority from declaring the area above the Melbourne CBD to be a restricted area in response to anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protests that have disrupted the city.

A judge has rejected an application by the plaintiffs in two class actions against Freedom Foods and Deloitte to run their cases side-by-side, but said she would have granted a bid to consolidate the proceedings had that been sought.

While a first test case in NSW rejected insurers' interpretation of infectious disease exclusions in COVID-19 business interruption policies, potentially putting the industry on the hook for billions of dollars in claims, QBE says the law is on its side in Victoria.

BHP Billiton has resolved a case by an employee who claimed the company breached the Fair Work Act by sacking her for alleged social media harassment of a co-worker who failed to self isolate after an interstate trip at the start of the first COVID-19 wave.

Nine subsidiary Fairfax Media has agreed to pay compensation to a Papua New Guinea politician who sued the publisher for defamation for allegedly engaging in a “smear campaign”, with a judge making an order of compensation despite a “ludicrous” objection from Fairfax.