Appeals

A Federal Court judge has questioned whether appeals from IP Australia should be allowed to proceed as hearings anew and not confined to the issues already run before the agency, in a ruling spanning 1,784 paragraphs that dismisses a challenge by chemical manufacturer SNF to a delegate's decisions granting two mining patents to rival BASF.

Australia's richest person Gina Rinehart has lost a bid to dismiss prior court orders to produce documents relating to the $4 billion family trust to her daughter, Bianca Rinehart.

The lead applicant in an $84 million class action against labour hire company WorkPac has been given the green light to intervene in an appeal that will clarify the definition of casual work for Australian employers.

An appeals court has dismissed a banned medical doctor's challenge to the granting of three vexatious proceedings orders on constitutional grounds that the judge who made the orders was too old.

Fairfax Media will seek to use documents provided by the US Department of Justice to amend its defence in a defamation case brought by wealthy Chinese-Australian businessman Chau Chak Wing over articles that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald linking him to an international bribery scandal.

Industry group Meat & Livestock Australia is challenging a ruling allowing US company Branhaven's cow genome patent to proceed, after a judge called the group's challenge to Branhaven's amendments to the patent "bizarre" and "flimsy".

Maurice Blackburn has not given up its fight with the Australian Taxation Office over a multimillion dollar tax liability on record-setting class action payout for Black Saturday bushfire victims.  

Fairfax Media is challenging a ruling ordering it to pay $280,000 in damages to Chau Chak Wing for an allegedly defamatory article that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald linking the wealthy Chinese-Australian businessman to an international bribery scandal.

A Sydney community group has lost a last-minute challenge to the demolition of Allianz Stadium, with the Court of Appeal throwing the case out in a unanimous decision.

The High Court has upheld a $1.3 million damages award to native title holders in the Northern Territory town of Timber Creek for their loss of spiritual attachment to the land, in the first ever assessment by the court of native title compensation.