More companies may find themselves in the position of Medibank — which recently failed to stay representative proceedings before the privacy regulator while a related class action is on foot — so long as the laws remain unchanged, and law firms are willing to gamble on privacy class actions.
A Sydney law firm and its principal have been fined $14,400 for disobeying a Fair Work Ombudsman compliance notice issued for the alleged underpayment of a paralegal, with a judge saying the lawyer’s belief she did not owe any wages was “unreasoned and unreasonable”.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has won a travel ban against a former director of collapsed cryptocurrency platform Blockchain Global while the regulator investigates suspected criminal offences.
Online auction business Grays has agreed to pay a $10 million penalty for engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct by posting hundreds of descriptions of cars for sale on its website that contained incorrect information.
A judge has sentenced the former CEO of Bingo Industries to two years’ imprisonment to be served in the community and imposed $30 million in penalties against the waste company for a cartel arrangement with rival Aussie Skips, which copped fines of $3.5 million and an 18 month’ intensive corrections order for its boss.
A judge has dismissed a bid by Medibank to restrain the Office of Australian Information Commissioner from proceeding with a class action-style complaint on behalf of millions of the private health insurer’s customers affected by an October 2022 data breach.
The Australian Information Commissioner has launched an investigation into the personal information handling practices of law firm HWL Ebsworth following a cyberattack that saw the firm’s data dumped on the dark web.
Mining giant Clive Palmer has asked the High Court to hear his challenge to a court’s finding that lawsuits he brought challenging two criminal cases against him over a takeover bid and payments to his political party were themselves an abuse of process and should be stayed.
The ACCC’s rejection of a $4.9 billion merger between ANZ and Suncorp was hardly surprising given the concentrated nature of the home loans market, but the competition regulator faced an uphill battle in having the decision upheld, an expert says.
The ACCC’s decision to block a $4.9 billion merger between ANZ and Suncorp has been set aside, with a tribunal finding the transaction will not substantially lessen competition in the home loans market or for agribusiness and SME clients in Queensland.