Contracts

Australia's largest milk producer Van Dairy has hit Fonterra Australia with lawsuits alleging the processor misled farmers and engaged in unconscionable conduct when it slashed milk prices in 2016.

A NSW developer says law firm Sparke Helmore should face a heftier damages bill for its negligence in failing to alert it to an imminent deadline in two land sale contracts worth a combined $1.5 million that were part of a troubled $30 million development.

Car dealers that have brought a class action against General Motors over its decision to retire the Holden brand in Australia rejected offers of compensation totaling close to $5 million, according to court documents.

A Perth solicitor has been reprimanded and ordered to pay a $24,000 fine after a tribunal found he had engaged in unsatisfactory professional conduct for pursuing a case that was “doomed to fail”.

Mercedes Benz Australia will produce 10,000 pages of documentary evidence alongside material from CEO Florian Seidler, in its fight against a $650 million lawsuit brought by Australian dealers over the car maker’s decision to move to a fixed-price agency model.

General Motors Holden Australia has denied that it owes compensation to Holden dealers over its decision to retire the iconic brand in Australia, and says its dependence on other GM units to supply the cars constituted "an event beyond its reasonable control".

Chaser star Julian Morrow engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and breached his directorial duties by taking over a joint venture behind the hit ABC consumer affairs program The Checkout while hiding the fact that he was negotiating a seventh season of the series, a court has found.

The applicants in a protracted class action against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia brought by borrowers who claim they were forced to default on their commercial loans have lost a bid to amend their pleadings, six years after the case was filed.

Engineering firm CIMIC has agreed to pay $492 million to settle a long-running dispute with JKC Australia over construction for the $45 billion Ichthys LNG project in the Northern Territory.

Australian Mercedes-Benz dealers behind a $650 million lawsuit over the car maker’s decision to move to a fixed-price agency model have lost a bid for an “ambitious number” of dealers to view “super confidential” documents from the company’s head office in Germany.