Judges

Ramsay Health Care Australia has been let off the hook for using emails subpoenaed in a defamation case between two feuding surgeons at one of its hospitals, with a judge accepting that an in-house lawyer was "mortified" by her mistake and was "drowning in work" at the time.

The judge overseeing the scandal-ridden Banksia Securities class action has questioned why a solicitor on record for the case hasn't handed over his ill-gotten fees despite professed regret for his actions and his claims to have reformed.

The behaviour of the legal team running the Banksia Securities class action was "reprehensible" and the solicitor who allowed himself to be controlled by lawyer and funder Mark Elliott should be struck from the court's roll of practitioners, a judge heard Tuesday.

Eleven women will give evidence of sexually inappropriate behaviour by actor Craig McLachlan in his defamation case against Rocky Horror Show co-star Christie Whelan Browne and publishers ABC and Fairfax, including one actress who worked with him on the set of Neighbours in the late 1980s. 

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has fired off a lawsuit against four drug companies for allegedly infringing one of its patents for biologic Enbrel by selling a biosimilar of the blockbuster arthritis drug in Australia.

A former receptionist’s claims of ill mental health after allegedly suffering sexual harassment by Australian cricket players and managers do not “ring true”, Cricket Tasmania has argued as the receptionist fights to bring her case out of time. 

A solicitor fighting to remain on the roll after his involvement in the infamous Banksia Securities class action has told of his regret at having lunch with the funder behind the case eight years ago -- a meeting that set in motion a plot driven by lawyers to deceive seven Supreme Court judges and defraud thousands of investors.

The NSW District Court judge presiding over the criminal trial of Guy Sebastian's former manager, Titus Day, has died suddenly.

A parade of actors are expected to take the stand and testify against Craig McLachlan at a trial that kicked off Monday in his defamation case against Rocky Horror Show co-star Christie Whelan Browne and publishers ABC and Fairfax.

Bayer has dropped its appeal to a ruling that quashed an extension for its patent covering an oral contraceptive, after the Full Court dealt drug makers a blow in two separate cases on how patent term extensions should be calculated.