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 ...

The Supreme Court of Western Australia has rejected a wide-ranging attack by a contracting party preferring litigation to arbitration on the operation of an arbitration clause Partner Andrew Maher reports ...

The Productivity Commissions draft report on its inquiry into Australias system of civil dispute resolution has now been released The comprehensive review focuses on ways to constrain costs and promote access to justice One of the areas the Productivity Commission is examining is Australias private ...

A representative proceeding can only be commenced where seven or more group members have claims against the same person In proceedings with multiple respondents there has been conflicting authority as to whether each group member is required to have a claim against each respondent Last week in Cash ...

In this issue we look at an unsuccessful challenge to the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the Federal Court of Australia recent changes to the arbitration rules of the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia the International Centre for Dispute Resolution and the London Court of ...

In a unanimous decision the Full Federal Court has confirmed that genetic materials in their isolated form remain patentable in Australia The decision related to an appeal from an earlier Federal Court decision in which it was found isolated nucleic acids to be a manner of manufacture as required by ...

In a recent decision the Victorian Court of Appeal has held that parties to an arbitration agreement cannot avoid arbitration by seeking to bring the claim in a statutory tribunal Partner Nick Rudge and Lawyer James Waters report on a case that reinforces the trend of Australian courts to give ...

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 ...

A policy background paper on media control and ownership released by the federal Department of Communications aims to restart the discussion on media law reform The paper does not draw conclusions or make recommendations but adopts a deregulatory tone Partner Ian McGill Senior Associate Matt Vitins ...

The Federal Court has recently ruled that there is no requirement for a public benevolent institution to provide direct relief to people in need Its interpretation of the expression public benevolent institution theoretically has the potential to expand eligibility well beyond traditionally accepted ...