Today the Full Federal Court clarified the law of penalties as it applies to fees The key development is that in considering whether the amount of a fee is extravagant and exorbitant compared to the potential costs incurred in dealing with a failure to perform an obligation the court held that ...

The recent Great Southern class action settlement included a term by which group members acknowledged and admitted that loans taken out with independent financiers to finance investments in Great Southern managed investment schemes were valid and enforceable Two separate Victorian Supreme Court ...

Australia and japan have enetered into an economic partnership agreement to reducel tariff barriers on the majority of Australian exports to Japan. In contrast to the recently concluded Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement, it does not include an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. ...

Perhaps the most important unanswered question in Australian class action law is how causation may be established in the context of a shareholder class action In the United States this issue has been addressed by the fraud on the market theory This week the US Supreme Court rejected a challenge to ...

Record US penalties recently imposed on car manufacturers for failures to deal appropriately with safety defects are a timely reminder to Australian manufacturers of their product safety obligations Partner Belinda Thompson Senior Associate Jaime McKenzie and Lawyer Ishwar Singh report ...

Parties involved in large-scale commercial transactions with non-lawyer third-party advisers need to be aware that communications with these advisers will rarely be protected by legal professional privilege following a recent Federal Court decision ...

Having a famous name has many perks, and as Lionel Messi recently found out, registering your name as a trade mark is one of these. However, such fame is a double-edged sword, as Dr Dre recently experienced. ...

The VLRC has completed its review of Victoria's class action regime, with a particular focus on the effect of litigation funding. The report calls for national regulation of litigation funding, lifting the ban on contingency fees and a greater supervisory role for the Victorian Supreme Court. ...

The WA Court of Appeal has taken an expansive view of the power that Australian courts have to grant interim orders in support of international arbitrations. ...

The recent New South Wales Supreme Court decision of Molopo Energy Limited v Keybridge Capital Limited reflects the continuing growth of shareholder activism in the Australian corporate landscape The case is a reminder that boards need to remain aware of developing activist strategies particularly ...