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A judge has ordered solicitors in a residential building spat to explain why costs orders should not be made against them, after they racked up sizeable fees for what she described as a small and simple dispute.

In the third decision approving an unaltered group costs order at the resolution of a class action, a judge has OK'd an $85 million settlement by ANZ, representing a $21 million payday for Maurice Blackburn.

Retirement village operator Lifestyle Communities has foreshadowed an appeal after a tribunal ruled that exit fees charged to departing residents were void.

Shinetec, the Australian arm of China’s Shanxi Construction Investment Group, has won orders restraining the developer of an abandoned $185 million project in NSW from accessing $48 million paid to it by Bank of China.

A court has found a NSW prefab home builder that convinced a couple to vary their contract to allow different cladding which did not have the same aesthetic effect as their preferred one engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct.

Melbourne developer SK Developments has won freezing orders against a builder, with a judge finding there was a danger that a $1.98 million judgment could be avoided. 

Property investment firm Charter Hall has sold its Bunnings Warehouse in the southeast Melbourne suburb of Clyde North for $44 million, in an off-market deal that reinforces the strength of retail real estate.

A tribunal has recommended a solicitor who continued to advertise his legal services on social media after his practising certificate was revoked should be struck off the roll.

The Victorian Bar has hit back at media reporting around the management of commercial litigation by Australian courts which singled out judges of the Supreme Court, saying “statistics never tell the whole story”.

A judge hearing a dispute over a lot in Victoria's Merrifield Business Park has found that the Competition and Consumer Act's bar on contracts that substantially lessen competition does not apply to a market in land.