Barristers and legal experts are calling on the new Attorney-General to actively commit to gender diversity when she begins to make appointments to the courts, as the federal government’s promise to put its decision making through a women’s “lens” raises hopes of more female judicial appointments to correct the imbalance on the bench.
The Victorian Government has been hit with a class action filed by residents of nine public housing towers who were locked down for two weeks at the start of the state’s second COVID-19 wave in July last year.
A small business owner has launched proceedings against his insurer claiming he was wrongly denied pandemic coverage under a business interruption policy, one of many cases expected to be filed in the wake a landmark ruling on infectious disease exclusions that could cost insurers $10 billion.
Barristers in Victoria have fired back after a memo from the head of the Victorian bar urged them to head back to court because “shorts and thongs under the desk” are “not who we are”.
The Victorian government has passed legislation allowing the state’s courts to permanently retain digital hearings, electronic signing and remote witnessing, which were implemented last year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The High Court will weigh in on a dispute between the Port of Newcastle and mining giant Glencore over access charges to shipping channels used to export coal from the Hunter Valley.
ASIC has launched its first case related to the COVID-19 pandemic, targeting personal lender ClearLoans for allegedly contravening the hardship provisions of the credit laws that resulted in “significant consumer harm”.
The High Court has rejected special leave applications by mining magnate Gina Rinehart to appeal a ruling which only partially stayed a legal dispute over ownership rights and royalties relating to the Rinehart family-owned Hope Downs iron ore mine, with one judge calling the mining magnate’s arguments a “tortured articulation” and “very odd”.
Women’s activewear company Lorna Jane has defended ACCC allegations that it represented to consumers during that height of the coronavirus pandemic that its activewear would protect them from viruses including COVID-19, saying it had a reasonable and proper basis for making the claims.
Lawyers and experts welcomed the High Court’s ruling Wednesday, which approved a class action beauty parade approach to dealing with competing proceedings and provided guidance as to how judges might otherwise manage the problem of duplicative cases. Here, Lawyerly outlines the important things to take away from the majority’s judgment.