IP Australia has rejected e-commerce giant Amazon’s patent application for a method of allocating resources in virtual computers, finding the patent’s claims were “nothing more than a scheme for scheduling work” and were not a manner of manufacture.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has raised preliminary competition concerns about the proposed merger of insurance giants Aon and Willis Towers Watson to create the world’s largest insurance provider, following investigations in the US, Europe, Canada and New Zealand.
Forty-four charges have been outlined in a long-awaited indictment in a criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement, including 29 charges against top executives from ANZ, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.
The liquidators of retirement village group Australian Property Custodian Holdings, which went into administration in 2010 owing $948 million, have had their proposal to compensate unitholders under a global proof of debt rejected by a judge, who called the plan vague and “unsatisfactory”.
Two insurance brokers have dodged being dragged into class action proceedings against sandalwood producer Quintis to boost a settlement reached last year, as a fight over insurance owed to the company to cover the settlement continues.
Count Financial has failed in its bid to put a former financial advisor’s insurers on the hook for a $15.3 million lawsuit brought by his former clients, as the accounting services company seeks to claw back its losses allegedly resulting from the advisor’s breaches of his duty of care and skill.
Fertility clinic IVF Australia is facing a lawsuit worth “many millions of dollars” launched by the parents of a child born with Pallister-Kilian syndrome, alleging it did not carry out a vital pre-implantation diagnostic test that would have identified the disease.
Further attempts to settle a securities class action against last mile logistics software firm GetSwift would be like flogging a dead horse, a judge has heard as the matter works its way towards a final hearing.
Law firm Atanaskovic Hartnell has failed to postpone its appeal of a ruling over unpaid legal fees until after its senior counsel — who is stuck in London — can get a COVID-19 vaccine and return to Australia.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia could be on the hook for a large penalty after the court found the bank engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and violated its financial services obligations on more than 12,000 occasions by overcharging customers more than $2.2 million in interest.