Environment

Communications between the environment minister's department and Woodside over the gas company's controversial North West Shelf project raised concerns about the apprehension of bias, activist group Australian Conservation Foundation has told a trial judge.

Waste management company Renex has filed court proceedings seeking to overturn an environmental prosecution, alleging the EPA's investigator was not properly authorised to bring the case. 

Allens has welcomed a globally recognised climate change lawyer and her team of four to the firm, amid an expected uptick in greenwashing and directors' duty claims. 

Clifford Chance has hired the head of Mallesons' real estate group and his team of five to lead its growing real estate practice in Australia, on the heels of hiring lawyers from Pinsent Masons and HSF Kramer to kickstart its construction and environment teams.

An environmental group has criticised the NSW opposition's plan to scale back the New England renewable energy zone, calling it an “irresponsible backflip”.

A traditional owner has launched legal action against the Victorian government, challenging the approval of a floodplain engineering project at Nyah on the Murray River.

A recycling company has lost its bid to recover millions of dollars from its insurers, with a judge finding the insurers were not on the hook for losses arising from an EPA cleanup.

An activist group can't block the owners of Claravale Station from clearing almost 3,000 hectares of savanna in the Northern Territory, with a judge finding it would be difficult to prove the government’s decision was legally unreasonable.

More than three decades after the Mabo decision and the introduction of the Native Title Act, the ALRC is calling for an overhaul of the "discriminatory" regime, which it says has failed to compensate native title owners or allow land use decisions to be fairly challenged. 

A Whitehaven Coal unit has succeeded in overturned four convictions for a 2020 blast at its Maules Creek mine that was found to breach environmental laws.