Victoria’s State Revenue Office breached its obligations and denied procedural fairness to a senior solicitor who was fired after an investigation into alleged harassment, the state’s Court of Appeal has found.
The city of Sydney has sued Telstra to block the telecommunications giant from carrying out the allegedly unlawful replacement and installation of payphones throughout the CBD area.
Generic drug company Pharmacor has fired back in a patent lawsuit by Novartis, filing a cross-claim seeking to invalidate the Swiss drug giant’s patents for its blockbuster MS drug Gilenya.
Swiss drug giant Novartis has secured an injunction temporarily blocking drug maker Pharmacor from launching a generic version of the company’s top-selling MS drug Gilenya in Australia.
Allowing former senior barrister Norman O’Bryan to reopen his defence in the Banksia class action while “avoiding the witness box” was clearly prejudicial, and futile to boot, a judge has said in his reasons for refusing the silk’s last-minute application.
Once high-flying barrister Norman O’Bryan might seek to challenge a refusal by the judge overseeing the Banksia class action to revisit his abandoned defence and accept into evidence a document he claims proved he did not secretly hold shares in the funder behind the case.
The litigation funding company controlled by the late solicitor Mark Elliott has told a court of its “remorse and regret” for its misconduct in the Banksia Securities class action, a case that has been described as the “darkest chapter in Victoria’s legal history”.
The son of Banksia class action funder Mark Elliott was no Michael Corleone of the Godfather, and was not knowingly complicit in an alleged scheme masterminded by his father to defraud group members and destroy evidence, his lawyer has told a court.
Barrister Norman O’Bryan SC has failed in his last-ditch bid to reopen his defence in the Banksia class action to submit evidence he says shows he did not retain an interest in the litigation funder behind the case.
The judge overseeing the trial alleging fraud on the part of barristers and the funder behind a class action over Banksia Securities will be asked to award at least $32 million to the failed property lender’s 16,000 debenture holders for the serious misconduct alleged against the lawyers.