Lawyer Alex Elliott can’t refuse to hand over evidence in the Banksia class action on the grounds of privilege against self incrimination or exposure to penalty because he waived privilege when he produced the documents to lawyers for his late father’s funder, a court has been told.
Pharmaceutical rivals Merck Sharp & Dohme and Pfizer have both suffered a blow in their efforts to patent a better pneumococcal vaccine, with a judge upholding both infringement and invalidity claims in the long-running case over the blockbuster Prevnar 13 vaccine.
The High Court has declined to review $280,000 in damages awarded to a lawyer, after an appeals court found a Today Tonight segment labelling her a “Centrelink cheat” was defamatory.
The judge overseeing a class action against Westpac over superannuation fees has criticised costly discovery processes that produce a “tsunami of material”, most of which is never used at trial.
Qantas Airways will challenge a court’s finding that it incorrectly applied the JobKeeper scheme and underpaid its staff.
Conservative talkback host Alan Jones has filed a defamation suit against public broadcaster SBS over a “tribute” aired on ‘The Feed’ which labelled him as someone who “spoke to the fears of every xenophobe and misogynist in the country”.
A judge has refused an application by the Federal Government to appeal the expansion of the Robodebt class action pleadings despite finding the case was “troubling”, “weak” and in certain aspects “[made] no sense whatsoever”.
Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer has lost his bid to vacate a trial scheduled to start next week in a high-stakes lawsuit alleging he committed copyright infringement by using Twister Sister’s 1980s rock anthem ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ in campaign ads for his United Australia Party without a licence.
A media report about Google’s location data privacy disclosures that set off investigations by consumer regulators in Australia and the US triggered crisis talks by senior executives of the search engine giant referred to as the ‘Oh shit meeting’, a court has been told.
Financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC will not take legal action against Afterpay over its compliance with anti-money laundering laws, following an external auditor’s report that found the buy now, pay later provider had received “incorrect” legal advice from several top-tier law firms about its compliance program.
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