Appeals

The High Court has ruled that the tax office was not obliged to refund money for tax surpluses mistakenly issued under the GST Act, in a long-running legal dispute between the Commissioner of Taxation and foreign currency exchange Travelex.

Judges have power to manage competing class actions by picking a winner in a so-called beauty parade, the High Court has ruled, but there is no one size fits all approach to the decision, and the law firm that files first is not guaranteed the coveted prize.

The lead plaintiffs in two class actions against 7-Eleven have appealed a decision rejecting the very first Federal Court application for oral discovery, which would have seen four former employees bound by confidentiality agreements give evidence.

Health care giant Healius has lost its application to the High Court to challenge a $60 million win for the Australian Taxation Office.

Certification of pleadings in legal action is not a formality that needs to be "ticked off", and solicitors who put their signature to improperly pleaded cases should face adverse costs, an irritated appeals judge has said.

The Full Federal Court has tossed an appeal by Johnson & Johnson unit Ethicon challenging a landmark decision that put it on the hook for paying damages to 10,000 women who suffered injury through defects in its prolapse mesh and incontinence tape implants.

GetSwift has triumphed in its bid to disqualify a judge who refused to recuse himself from hearing a shareholder class action against the logistics software company after presiding over ASIC's civil penalty proceeding against the company.

The Full Federal Court has been asked to consider an appeal of a judge's ruling backing the position of the Commissioner of Patents that two patents for a computer-implemented invention did not describe a manner of manufacture and should be revoked.

The High Court has set a date for handing down its keenly anticipated judgment in a case that challenged the winner of a beauty contest of class actions against AMP, a decision expected to offer guidance on how courts should tackle the so-called multiplicity problem.

Former senator David Leyonhjelm has lost his appeal of a ruling ordering him to pay $120,000 to Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young for defaming her in a series of interviews in 2018.