Judges

Group members in a class action against Fonterra are set to reap about $13 million from a $25 million settlement reached with the dairy company, following deductions including the costs of the litigation funder’s after-the-event insurance.

Requests by litigants for judges to disqualify themselves from presiding over cases were largely denied last year, in a raft of decisions containing lessons for litigants weighing up their own recusal bids in 2023.

An appeals court has dismissed an appeal from two contractors who worked on Chevron's Gorgon gas field project who allege they were underpaid over $130 million by the energy giant.

Editors and journalists from Australia’s largest news organisations have protested recent changes to the Federal Court Rules that restrict the public’s access to documents filed with the court, calling it a “full-frontal assault” on open justice. 

Microsoft has won a pittance for copyright infringement but copped a “substantial costs order” in its six-year-old intellectual property suit against a Melbourne computer retailer over its Windows 7 software, which previously netted the Silicon Valley giant a $2.8 million payout from Judge Sandy Street that was slammed as a "regrettable" judicial failure.

Hancock Prospecting has lost a bid to shut down court cases brought by fellow mining giants Wright Prospecting and DFD Rhodes until the outcome of a family arbitration, after a judge found the company’s own forensic choices made the risk of inconsistent decisions inevitable.

A judge who previously acted for a United Petroleum Group company in a “highly acrimonious” case eight years ago has refused to recuse herself from adjudicating a new dispute involving a related company.

A prominent Melbourne lawyer and his wife have been restrained from acting in a property dispute, after a judge found they misled the court and facilitated a false settlement in favour of their clients.

In reasons for approving a $41 million deal to settle one of three shareholder class actions over Slater & Gordon's acquisition of a UK firm and awarding the funder 28 per cent, a judge has challenged a persistent notion that the interests of litigation funders and group members are at odds.

A judge has approved a $450,000 penalty against Australian Mines in ASIC proceedings brought after its managing director was allegedly caught lying at an investment conference about the value of an offtake agreement and funding for a project at its cobalt and nickel mine in Queensland.