The Australian maker of a trendy neoprene handbag sold at high-end retailers has lost a copyright lawsuit over alleged knockoffs, with a judge finding the tote was at most an “evolution in styling” and not a work of artistic craftsmanship with copyright protection.
The eyes of class action lawyers will be on the High Court Tuesday as it hears arguments over a judge’s power to choose a single class action among competing proceedings and what, if anything, should be made of a case’s funding structure and likely returns to group members when picking a winner.
The High Court has unanimously rejected a constitutional challenge against the Victorian government over its COVID-19 lockdown measures.
A 65-year-old Melbourne man has become the first person in Australia to be charged with a foreign interference offence since new national security legislation was passed in 2018.
Aircraft engineers for Qantas are challenging a ruling that the airline had no “genuine choice” when it stood them down in March during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A judge overseeing the misconduct trial in the Banksia Securities class action has rejected a bid by a lawyer for the deceased cost consultant in the case to separately determine whether a cause of action survives his death.
Venture capitalist Elaine Stead wants Australian Financial Review columnist Joe Aston to hand over documents connected to confidential sources, and says Aston can’t rely on a journalist’s privilege protecting the identity of informants.
Hotel booking aggregator Trivago has lost its challenge to a court ruling that it misled consumers over its ranking of travel accommodation, in what the consumer regulator hailed as a win for consumers and a warning to comparison sites.
The son of Banksia class action funder Mark Elliott, who has been accused of complicity in a fraudulent scheme to maximise the profits of the lawyers in the case, was young and inexperienced and didn’t know his father’s conduct was wrong, his barrister has told a court.
The NSW Court of Appeal has passed on the question of whether a judge can make a common fund order when a class action settles to ensure a certain return to litigation funders, but the issue is not going away, whatever the Federal Court’s decision in a parallel case.