The ACCC has won a record $26.5 million penalty against defunct vocational trainer Empower Institute for “duping” disadvantaged customers into enrolling in courses they couldn’t afford with the promise of free laptops and cash.
National car repair franchise Ultra Tune is preparing negligence suits against its former lawyers and auditors, after the company on Friday won a $590,000 reduction in a $2.6 million penalty for breaches of the Franchising Code of Conduct.
James Cook University has followed through on its promise to appeal a $1.2 million judgment awarded against it for the unfair dismissal of physics professor and climate skeptic Peter Ridd.
Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns has filed defamation proceedings against the Sunday Telegraph over an article that stated a brothel specialising in bondage had become a “second home” for the rocker.
A national Australian law firm has asked the Federal Court to throw out a sex discrimination claim filed against it by a former partner, on the grounds that no excuse had been provided for her delay in making a complaint other than “a fairly sorry story”.
A judge has quietly given his seal of approval to a settlement distribution scheme in a class action against KPMG, after raising questions about Piper Alderman’s legal bill and the litigation funder’s “arguably excessive” cut of the confidential settlement.
The liquidator appointed to investigate a class action over Walton Construction’s collapse is now looking to file his own case against National Australia Bank, the company’s former director, and the restructuring firm hired before the construction company’s demise.
The Federal Government is mulling criminal penalties for the “most serious types” of wage theft, with violators facing up to ten years in jail.
The CFMEU has successfully challenged an interim Fair Work Commission order barring workers at stevedoring firm DP World from ‘go slow’ industrial action after an appeals panel found a commissioner had no power to make the original order because she miscalculated, by 7.5 hours, when she could make it.
The ACCC has issued final guidelines on how Australia’s competition laws will apply to intellectual property assignments and licences following the repeal of the ‘IP exemption’ from prohibitions on anti-competitive conduct which was contained in subsection 51(3) of the Competition and Consumer Act. As of September 13 the IP exemption no longer applies, however, certain worked examples remain undeveloped or unrealistic, such that uncertainties remain as to the ACCC’s likely approach in particular matters, writes Patrick Gay and Amalia Stone of Herbert Smith Freehills.