Judges

Engineering services company CIMIC will fork over $32.4 million to settle a shareholder class action, with group members expected to get 40 per cent of the settlement total if the court approves the requested  legal costs and funder's commission.

With Victoria set to pass legislation permitting law firms to charge contingency fees, experts have raised fears of an exodus of class actions from other states and the federal system. But the Federal Court, which hears about two-thirds of Australia's representative proceedings, is not likely to surrender easily.

The lead applicant in a shareholder class action against laser technology company Arasor will walk away with a fraction of the approximately $508,000 in legal and other bills it has racked up in disputes with the ATO and funder International Litigation Partners following the approval of a $19.25 million class action settlement more than two years ago.

The High Court's recent ruling putting a stop to the practice of judges issuing common fund orders at the early stages of class action proceedings, while "not a good development", wasn't the end of the class action regime as we know it, a Federal Court judge has said.

A landmark ruling granting fintech Rokt's application for a software patent has come under attack before the Full Federal Court, with the judges expressing skepticism about the invention's patentability.

An Adelaide lawyer has been awarded $750,000 in damages after suing a woman who gave him bad reviews on Google that sent 80 per cent of his clients packing.

A Melbourne-based craft brewery has had its 'Urban Ale' trade mark cancelled, with a judge finding other beer makers might want to use the words to describe their products and that cancelling the mark would be in the public interest.

A lawyer for Tasmanian state government owned ports company TasPorts has criticised the ACCC's first-of-its kind case that alleges it is misusing its market power to stymie competition, saying it isn't clear what the regulator wants the court to do.

Television network Channel Seven has been ordered to pay $280,000 in damages to a lawyer after an appeals court ruled a Today Tonight segment labelling her a "Centrelink cheat" was defamatory.

A former director of Atrum Coal has been ordered to pay over $6 million owed to a unit of Hong Kong finance giant Argonaut Group after a prior default saw the former executive lose $12 million worth of shares in the company.