Judges

With $254 million at stake, Westpac wants a court order blocking the business partner of Forum Group founder Bill Papas from leaving Australia, as Papas remains in Greece while fraud allegations swirl.

Noting that the legal costs of a dispute over whether she could represent federal minister Christian Porter in his defamation case were "substantial", Sue Chrysanthou SC has asked to see invoices before she agrees to a lump sum bill of $550,000.

Thorn Group is the latest lender ensnared in an alleged $400 million fraud by Forum Finance, with potential funds of up to $2.2 million tied up in the collapsed equipment leasing firm.

Melbourne-based joint venture Shepparton Partners Collective has appealed a $1.2 million judgment which 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.

Four witnesses who allegedly saw Ben Roberts-Smith kick a handcuffed man off a cliff in Afghanistan will give evidence next week in the war veteran’s defamation trial, which has been disrupted by COVID-19 restrictions in NSW.

A judge has found former NSW Labor Ministers Ian McDonald and Eddie Obeid, as well as Obeid's son Moses, guilty of conspiring to rig a tender process for a coal mining exploration licence on the Obeids' land in the Bylong Valley.

A former managing director of global drug giant Apotex is suing his old employer over $226,000 in bonuses and $175,000 in leave he claims were not paid when he was made redundant in September 2019.

Mosaic Brands has appealed a ruling ordering it to comply with a request for documents from the Australian Communications and Media Authority over its potential violations of the Spam Act.

Clive Palmer will seek special leave from the High Court to appeal a ruling from the Queensland Court of Appeal ordering him to return $102 million borrowed before the collapse of Queensland Nickel in 2016, and has demanded that the company's liquidators return the money he paid following the ruling.

A judge has questioned the legal disbursements sought to be approved in a $30 million class action settlement against Westpac over allegedly excessive life insurance premiums, particularly the "extraordinarily large" barrister fees charged in the case.