The public and political response to the Optus incident, including the federal government’s announcement of urgent privacy law reform, suggests there may now be an appetite to test obstacles to data breach class actions, or for the government to legislate around them, say Allens lawyers Kate Austin, Valeska Bloch, Isabelle Guyot and Andrew Burns.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been ordered to pay former colleague Brian Burston $250,000 for “seriously damaging” and malicious comments made in a Today Show interview.
The Supreme Court of Victoria has been called out in a report into sexually inappropriate behavior and bullying by judges as an “extremely hierarchical” workplace that has all the risk factors for harassment.
The NSW gaming regulator has suspended the Star Entertainment Group’s casino license and handed it a $100 million fine after uncovering anti-money laundering breaches and “inherently deceptive” misconduct.
The use of advertisements to find eager applicants to fill federal judicial vacancies has been foreshadowed by the Attorney-General as he promises to bring more transparency and integrity to the process for appointing judges.
Teleco contractor BSA, which resolved a class action by its workforce for $20 million, won’t be recouping the costs of legal action to exclude a $13 million capital raising from the settlement.
Twenty barristers have risen to the ranks of senior counsel in New South Wales, including a veteran defamation barrister, two counsel with class action expertise and part of the team that saw ASIC’s claims against two Rio Tinto executives dropped.
US-based multinational firm Jones Day has lured a partner from Clayton Utz to join its intellectual property team in Melbourne.
The federal government has flagged reforms to Australia’s privacy laws in the wake of a cyberattack that left the data of up to 10 million current and former Optus customers exposed, including heftier penalties for companies that fail to safeguard users’ personal data.
Seizing on the opportunity afforded by a dynamic and growing area of the law, and wanting to pursue more public interest cases, three young stars of Slater & Gordon have left the firm they cut their teeth on to start their own class action firm.