Judges

A Melbourne car dealer has largely lost a consumer law case against Honda Australia over its decision to abandon a dealership model, but is set to receive compensation for over 2,600 new vehicles it could have sold if Honda hadn’t ended its five-year contract early.

Law firm Atanaskovic Hartnell has argued that its alleged failure to provide updated fee estimates while acting for a company associated with investor Nicholas Bolton did not mean he is immune from paying fair and reasonable legal fees assessed at $308,940. 

Hearing arguments Tuesday on whether lawyers should be permitted to earn contingency fees in Federal Court class actions, judges on a Full Court bench appeared to lean in favour of allowing so-called solicitors' common fund orders, rejecting claims they are "unjust". 

Noumi and ASIC are challenging a finding that the food manufacturer waived legal professional privilege over a PricewaterhouseCoopers report commissioned by its lawyers at Ashurst by disclosing the report during an ASIC investigation.

A judge has left open the question of whether a line of authority relating to the materiality of information under the continuous disclosure regime could be relevant to a stoush between collapsed engineering firm Forge Group and Clough Group, saying the decisions may apply to cases alleging breaches of the insider trading provisions of the Corporations Act.

The e-Safety Commissioner has expanded its case seeking to have X Corp remove posts that depict a stabbing of a bishop at a Sydney church, arguing X could have done more to prevent Australian users, including children and VPN users, from viewing the videos.

A judge has blasted energy broker Energy Action's bid for interim orders enforcing a confidentiality agreement against a former employee who jumped ship to a competitor, calling the bid “grossly excessive”.

Medicinal cannabis company Vitura Health has won its bid for orders restricting the access of a software partner to its IT systems after an alleged hack.

Optus has lost its appeal of a decision that found the telco could not claim legal professional privilege over a Deloitte report into a major data breach, with an appeals court highlighting the lack of evidence from former CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.

Administrators of collapsed budget airline Bonza have been given two more months to try to sell the company, with the Federal Court finding a sale would be of greater benefit than liquidation to the airline's 58,428 creditors, who are owed $116 million.