The liquidators of construction giant Ralan have been given the go-ahead to pursue a former sales manager and his wife as well as the ATO with claims worth over $18 million, with a judge finding the collapsed company operated “a type of Ponzi scheme”.
GetSwift director Joel Macdonald still has not been served almost a year after his former Melbourne Demons teammate James Strauss filed a $15 million lawsuit against him, with a judge adjourning yet another substituted service application.
Novartis unit Sandoz has won its bid to stay a case by rival Lundbeck, including orders for damages previously calculated at $26.3 million and counting, despite having succeeded at the High Court in a dispute over its patent for blockbuster antidepressant Lexapro.
Select AFSL, its related entities and its director have been slapped with $13.6 million in penalties after a judge found that the life insurer used unconscionable phone sales tactics to “wear down” often vulnerable consumers, including migrants and Indigenous communities.
The government of Peru has appealed a ruling that rejected its bid to trade mark the alcoholic spirit pisco, after an IP Australia delegate found Aussie consumers think of more than Peruvian pisco when they see the name.
The successor of Dow Agrosciences has lost its latest bid to register a patent that is aimed at limiting the worldwide problem of herbicide vapour drift after a delegate found that its seventh such patent had no inventive step.
Despite a global economic slowdown Australian lawyers won’t face layoffs like their US counterparts, legal insiders say, but some who cashed in during the COVID-19 talent drought shouldn’t expect to see raises any time soon.
A court has blessed a trust’s settlement with Ernst & Young that resolves a negligence case linked to a decade-long tax dispute that went to the High Court, rejecting an objection to the deal and saying it was “time this matter was brought to a conclusion”.
Optus has denied class action claims that customers suffered loss and damages for its alleged negligence in relation to last year’s massive data breach and argues they are not entitled to compensation for distress, frustration or disappointment that does not amount to a recognised psychiatric illness.
The tax leaks scandal engulfing PricewaterhouseCoopers has been referred to the newly formed National Anti-Corruption Commission, as the accounting firm sacks eight partners for professional governance breaches.
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