Lawyers pursuing a class action against Scenic Tours on behalf of passengers whose European cruises were interrupted by severe flooding have been granted preliminary discovery as they weigh a second multi-million dollar class action against the company over cancellations caused by last year’s severe drought conditions.
A judge has urged a partner at Big Six firm Ashurst not to “keep a fight going just because you can’t let it go”, after the lawyer tried to challenge a court ruling over a long-running building dispute with his neighbour, a former Family Court judge, in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Point Piper.
Supermarket giant Coles has lost an appeal over $40 million in tax credits it had claimed for fuel that evaporated or leaked from tanks at its service stations, after a judge described the supermarket giant’s argument as “artificial”.
The competition watchdog has given Canadian dairy producer Saputo the green light to acquire Australian competitor Lion Dairy’s cheese processing plants, but has warned any further consolidation in the Tasmanian dairy sector would cause significant concern.
Lawyers for former Citigroup executive Stephen Roberts have complained that prosecutors have failed to provide a “shred of material” to explain his alleged involvement in a criminal cartel relating to ANZ’s $2.5 billion capital raising, as the defendants fight to grill Crown witnesses before trial.
A judge has given Sydney businessman Charif Kazal a third and final opportunity to replead his “simply incomprehensible” case against Gilbert + Tobin over the law firm’s involvement in a business dispute concerning a lucrative waste facility, despite saying it took “an entire week to understand the arcane obscurities” of the pleading.
Dairy giant Fonterra has lost its bid to stop Vitasoy from registering its slogan ‘Growing Milk Since 1940’ as a trade mark, after unsuccessfully arguing that consumers would be misled by the lack of animal milk in Vitasoy’s soy and almond milk products.
A major property development CEO accused of paying his Filipino nanny $2.33 an hour has denied underpayment allegations, instead claiming the woman was a “guest of the family” who was “free to decide” whether or not she wished to provide domestic assistance.
A judge has appointed provisional liquidators to ‘Diamond Joe’ Gutnick’s mining company Merlin Diamonds, after finding evidence of “serious mismanagement” and citing an urgent need to investigate the company’s books.
Volkswagen is nearing the end of the road in the dieselgate scandal in Australia, as the car company agrees to an in-principle resoltion of enforcement action by the ACCC while also finalising the details of the settlement of five class actions worth up to $127 million.