The former CEO of a unit of collapsed construction firm Hastie Group told staff to “raid the balance books” to make up financial targets linked to his bonus, prosecutors said at the outset of a two-month criminal trial.
UK-based building products giant Hill & Smith Holdings wants to drag a Singaporean entity into its road safety patent dispute with Australian company Safe Barriers, whose directors are ex-employees of Hill & Smith.
La Trobe University has reached a settlement with the head of its law school, Dr Patrick Keyzer, to resolve legal action alleging it breached its workplace obligations when it suspended him over bullying complaints. The university dropped its disciplinary proceedings against Keyzer, with no adverse findings being made.
The former directors of collapsed mining company Termite Resources have appealed a ruling ordering them to pay $7 million in damages for allegedly breaching their duty by distributing more than $46 million to Termite’s parent company and failing to maintain a cash reserve of at least $10 million.
A hearing scheduled for later this year in several class actions and an ACCC proceeding over allegations Volkswagen installed dual-mode software in diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions tests has been postponed, despite cries of prejudice from the consumer regulator.
AMP’s financial planning unit has admitted it breached the Corporations Act when at least one of its representatives engaged in so-called insurance policy churning, in a case brought by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission that will now head to a hearing on penalties next month.
Potential new entrants to a major freight terminal in Queensland will be “better protected” by a last-minute promise by the terminal’s hopeful owner, Pacific National, than if the ACCC had succeeded in blocking the rail operator’s proposed $205 million acquisition, according to the judge who dismissed the competition watchdog’s case.
IP Australia has rejected an application by Huawei Technologies to register the trade mark Nova after a challenge by radio giant Nova Entertainment, with a delegate finding the Chinese telecommunications company had failed to prove its intention to use the mark.
A proposed Novartis patent for an oral form of its top-selling multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya is invalid for lack of inventive step, IP Australia has found, but gave the pharmaceutical giant a chance to amend.
Two female academics who made complaints of bullying against the head of La Trobe University’s law school and were named in his legal action against the university over his subsequent suspension have lost a bid to keep their identities under wraps.