Companies

Pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb are liable for losses to the federal government for excess subsidies it allegedly paid for the blood-thinner Plavix after an unjustified court injunction prevented the release of a generic version of the top-selling drug, an appeals court has heard.

A $37.75 million settlement has been reached in a shareholder class action against Estia Health that accused the aged care provider of failing to disclose difficulties in its 2015 and 2016 acquisition strategy.

US pharmaceutical giant Merck Sharp & Dohme has taken Sandoz to court for allegedly threatening to infringe the patent for its multibillion-dollar diabetes drugs Janumet and Januvia.

GetSwift has been criticised for its "quite unfair attack" on a Federal Court judge who refused to disqualify himself from hearing a shareholder class action against the logistics software company after presiding over ASIC's civil penalty proceeding against the company.

A judge has raised questions about an estimated $13.6 million in legal costs to be sought in an upcoming approval hearing on a $44.5 million settlement reached in a shareholder class action against Woolworths.

Proceedings launched by ASIC in December accusing the Commonwealth Bank of Australia of saddling consumers with $2.9 million in inflated interest rates on their business overdraft accounts on more than 12,000 occasions will move swiftly to a penalties hearing.

Two shareholders of failed Arrium Group have secured leave from the High Court to challenge a ruling that nixed their planned examination of a former director to bolster a class action over the collapse of the steel producer.

Lawyers representing Bluescope in an appeal of a Fair Work case copped a scolding by a judge Thursday for sending multiple emails to his chambers "pressuring" his associate to provide dates for a hearing.

A barrister for a Sydney criminal lawyer who wears hearing aids and is suing News Corp's Nationwide News over allegedly defamatory Daily Telegraph articles referring to his profound deafness has likened the stories to accusing bespectacled lawyers of being blind.

Westpac-backed venture capital firm Reinventure Group has settled a lawsuit brought by a former partner claiming she was entitled to a cut of a $100 million valuation increase in 11 startups the firm invested in.