A prominent Queensland family has won almost $3.7 million in damages after a court found the Nine Network was “recklessly indifferent” to the truth of a 60 Minutes’ report alleging the collapse of a wall at the family’s quarry was to blame for floods that killed 12 people.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission wants to investigate the conduct of a Worrells partner in relation to the winding up of Members Alliance Group, a group of property investment companies whose 2016 collapse stripped creditors of over $40 million and left its director facing fraud charges.
Ernst & Young, which is facing a lawsuit brought by the receiver of a fund overseen by failed financial services firm LM Investment Management, has lost its bid to file a claim for damages against LMIM, with a judge saying the auditor’s case was “flawed” and “counterintuitive”.
This month’s decision by the Queensland Supreme Court confirming the validity of the class action funding business model in jurisdictions whose legislatures have not abolished the tort of maintenance and champerty is a landmark one, writes Piper Alderman partners Greg Whyte and Lillian Rizio.
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.
The Queensland Supreme Court has upheld the legality of litigation funding agreements in a landmark class action judgment that could have a ripple effect across other states in Australia.
The Queensland Supreme Court judge has refused to transfer proceedings by villa owners against Clive Palmer’s abandoned Sunshine Coast resort to the Federal Court, but has also rejected a separate bid by Palmer to shut down the case, which has been dormant for six years.
Businessman Clive Palmer has lost an application to put a stop to a trial in a case brought by the liquidators of collapsed Queensland Nickel after arguing the proceeding was continuing largely to pay the litigation funder bankrolling the case.
Australian coal miner Moreton Resources has won a Full Federal Court appeal over tax offsets it claims are owed over a failed pilot project testing underground coal gasification, a process which was ultimately banned in Queensland.
The Federal Court has given the Victorian arm of Grocon Constructors more time to comply with a $13.9 million judgment in an ongoing lease dispute over a Brisbane office tower, after the construction company promised to file its appeal of the ruling “with diligence and expedition”.