Judges

A judge has ordered directors of collapsed mining company Termite Resources to pay $7 million in damages after finding they breached their duty by distributing more than $46 million to its parent company and failing to maintain a cash reserve of at least $10 million.

Receivers, not just liquidators, can distribute assets to satisfy priority claims of an insolvent company's employees, a judge has ruled, settling a question of law under the Corporations Act.

Australia's largest independent coal producer Whitehaven Coal Mining has been convicted and fined $38,500 after potentially harmful gas drifted from one of its mines across neighbouring farmland.

Generic pharmaceutical firm Sandoz has won a temporary stay of a $26.3 million judgment in a patent case as it awaits a decision by the Commissioner of Patents regarding a licence to make a cheaper version of the bestselling antidepressant Lexapro.

Trial in a shareholder class action against engineering company WorleyParsons will be heard by a new judge in late August, six months after it was unexpectedly vacated.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has won its bid to appoint liquidators to solvent landbanking company Aviation 3030, with a judge saying ASIC's public-interest case for the scheme's winding up was "overwhelming".

A judge has rejected a claim of legal privilege over emails at the centre of a copyright lawsuit over a puppet-show parody of the 80s sitcom Golden Girls, a production that has spawned legal action between the collaborators in New York and Australia.

The Chief Justice of the Federal Court wants four referees to weigh what's expected to be voluminous expert evidence in three class actions against the Commonwealth of Australia over exposure to allegedly toxic foam used on a government military bases, saying with 60 class actions pending in the Federal Court, devoting a single judge to the case for months on end should be a "mechanism of last resort".

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission wants to add GetSwift's former inhouse lawyer as a respondent in its enforcement action against the logistics company, as debate rages over whether a class action against the company should be postponed.

The Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions has told the Federal Court it will "very significantly" reduce the number of criminal charges laid against mobility equipment supplier Country Care Group as the landmark cartel case heads to trial in October.