The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said competition by smaller airlines was essential ‘now, more than ever’ as the airline industry undergoes a major upheaval due to the coronavirus and the administration of Virgin Airlines, and vowed to continue its probe of Qantas’ 19.9 per cent stake in Alliance Airlines.
Uber has once again attempted to put the brakes on a landmark class action which alleges the ride-sharing giant engaged in a conspiracy to steal business from taxi and limousine drivers across four states, telling a court of appeal that the trial judge wrongly departed from prevailing laws.
Vocational education provider Box Hill Insitute must notify current students that their aviation course is the subject of a class action, which claims the licences students obtained through the institute did not provide them with the requisite knowledge or training to obtain a commercial pilots licence.
Essential Energy has lost its appeal of a ruling granting preliminary discovery for a potential class action over the 2018 Tathra bushfire in New South Wales.
A five-month litigation drought due to the difficulties of remote investigations and staff diversions during the coronavirus pandemic will end soon, ACCC chairman Rod Sims told Lawyerly, with enforcement action set to ramp back up in the second half of the year.
The ACCC has lost its bid to stay a cartel appeal by Indonesian airline PT Garuda, with a judge finding the competition watchdog had not shown the airline acted in contempt of court by failing to pay a $19 million fine.
Australia’s competition regulator has asked technology companies, news outlets and other stakeholders to grapple with some of the complex issues required to develop the Government’s new mandatory code, which will see digital giants such as Google and Facebook forced to bargain with publishers and pay for news content.
A court has granted a request from Grosvenor Litigation Services, the funder that backed two class actions against Volkswagen over its emissions cheating scandal, to suppress the details of a co-funding agreement with Vannin Capital.
The ACCC has been given the green light to use witness statements prepared during its criminal cartel investigation of BlueScope Steel in the civil penalty proceedings launched by the regulator, but a fight with the steel giant over the admissibility of the evidence still looms.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has won court approval to bring new claims against BlueScope Steel for allegedly seeking to induce competitor OneSteel to engage in cartel conduct.