Judges

Just who is entitled to join a Fair Work action against Airservices Australia is still up in the air, a court heard Tuesday, with lawyers clashing over the scope of the employee class five months after the case was filed.

Volkswagen has been ordered for a third time to provide the court with the names of employees who were involved in approving the emissions cheat software that's at the center of litigation by Australia's consumer regulator and several class actions against the German car maker.

Fairfax Media has been fined and hit with a contempt of court order for reneging on its promise to refrain from advertising its Domain business as "the #1 property app in Australia" while a consumer protection case brought against it by realestate.com.au owner REA Group was ongoing.

A Federal Court judge has given the all-clear to a $132.5 million offer by QBE to settle a class action by shareholders angry about a $5 billion stock market wipeout for the insurance provider.

Branhaven will seek court approval to amend the bovine gene patent held by it and Cargill, after the Federal Court sided with a challenge by Meat & Livestock Australia and found the patent was invalid.

A company that owns two innovation patents covering the ubiquitous produce containers in Australian grocery stores has successfully defended the validity of the inventions against claims they were neither inventive nor new.

Ultra Tune was "cavalier and careless" in its attitude towards its franchisees, the ACCC told the Federal Court Tuesday at the start of a four-day hearing in a case alleging the national car repair business failed to comply with the Franchising Code and breached the Australian Consumer Law. 

A judge on Tuesday consolidated two shareholder class actions against life sciences company Sirtex Medical and appointed Maurice Blackburn as lead lawyers for the joint proceedings.

Quinn Emanuel has been forced to bow out as class action counsel in a case against Bank of Queensland after litigation funder Vannin Capital called for the law firm's $4 million fee to be challenged.

Cargill has won a discovery dispute in a case alleging fraudulent concealment by Viterra in its $420 million sale of malt producer Joe White Maltings to Cargill Australia in 2013, with a judge finding documents attached to privileged emails or emails that are part of a privileged chain are protected by legal professional privilege.