Events

A former Commonwealth Bank executive facing criminal commercial bribery charges has been ordered to hand over a number of documents in a US lawsuit brought by IT company Computer Sciences Corporation, but has avoided orders compelling him to take the witness stand.

Sparke Helmore has refuted allegations by IOOF subsidiary Australian Executor Trustees (SA) that it failed to provide proper legal advice to the trustee on a 2012 pine plantation sale that left 4,500 investors without millions of dollars worth of assets.

Novartis has applied to amend its proposed patent for an oral form of multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya, as it appeals an invalidity ruling by IP Australia for lack of inventive step.

IOOF subsidiary Australian Executor Trustees (SA) is facing an $82 million claim for compensation by investors angered by the way the trustee handled the sale of a 42,000 hectare timber plantation run by collapsed forestry giant Gunns Group.

Indonesian national airline Garuda is appealing a $19 million price-fixing fine, the second largest penalty in the ACCC's decade-long global cartel case over air cargo price-fixing.

A firm owned by solicitor Mark Elliot has launched an appeal challenging costs orders made against it in a stayed class action against winemaker Treasury Wine Estates.

Rival law firms Phi Finney McDonald and Maurice Blackburn have offered to consolidate their competing shareholder class actions against BHP after prompting by the Full Federal Court, which said Friday it approved of the plan.

An appeals court has tossed a challenge to the dismissal of an investor class action against the Public Trustee of Queensland over a failure to predict the 2008 collapse of Gold Coast-based finance group Octaviar, finding that the class had run a case based on allegations outside of its claims.

The High Court of Australia has resolved a nearly 40-year old question of whether employees of a failed company established as trustee of a trading trust have priority over ordinary unsecured creditors.

Law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has followed through on its threat to appeal a high stakes ruling that shut down its shareholder class action against AMP, along with two competing cases, after a two-day beauty parade that saw rival firm Maurice Blackburn take the prize.