Melbourne-based joint venture Shepparton Partners Collective has lost its appeal of a $1.2 million judgment that found it infringed software developer QAD’s copyright by failing to pay a transfer fee to retain the licence after it acquired the iconic SPC Ardmona cannery in Victoria from Coca-Cola Amatil for $40 million.
Two former barristers ordered to pay at least $21.7 million in damages and costs for their role in a fraudulent scheme to pocket a windfall from the Banksia Securities class action have filed for bankruptcy.
IP Australia has won its appeal of a judge’s decision to allow four Aristocrat patents for its popular Lightning Link electronic poker machine to proceed to grant, with the Full Court finding the invention merely implemented an abstract idea on a computer and was not patentable.
A former partner at accounting firm Pitcher Partners has told a court that he had issues working with Ernst & Young on an audit of law firm Slater & Gordon, calling the Big 4 firm “uncooperative”.
A judge has denied former Attorney-General Christian Porter access to material about a crucial meeting involving Jo Dyer, the friend of a woman who accused him of rape, which he sought to bolster his appeal of the removal of silk Sue Chrysanthou from his now-settled defamation case against the ABC.
The lead applicant in a shareholder class action over Slater & Gordon’s disastrous $1.2 billion Quindell acquisition has said he might have “dumped” his stock before the firm experienced massive losses in 2016 if not for Pitcher Partners and Ernst & Young’s allegedly faulty advice.
The High Court has rejected Volkswagen’s special leave application to challenge a record $125 million penalty for selling cars with a defeat device that allowed them to cheat on emissions tests.
Logistics company GetSwift says it is considering an appeal of an 859-page judgment which lambasted the company and its directors’ “public relations-driven approach” to announcements on the Australian Stock Exchange.
Accounting firms EY and Pitcher Partners ignored “front page news” that Slater & Gordon’s acquired business Quindell was scrutinised by a UK regulator after reporting a $250 million (£137 million) loss, a court heard on the second day of trial in a class action by the law firm’s shareholders.
The Sparke Helmore partner at the centre of a $1 million professional negligence lawsuit attempted to conceal an “oversight of enormous proportions” that is said to have lost a property developer two lucrative contracts, a court has heard.