LAW – AUSTRALIA – CASES

Santos gets green light on $5bn project

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Original article by Colin Packham
The Australian – Page: 13 & 14 : 16-Jan-24

The Federal Court’s Justice Natalie Charlesworth has ruled that Santos will not need to revise its environmental plan for the $5.3bn Barossa LNG project in the Timor Sea. Justice Charlesworth ordered Santos to temporarily stop work on a 262km pipeline in late 2023, pending a final ruling on Tiwi Islanders’ legal challenge to the Barossa project; Justice Charlesworth on Monday said she was not convinced that the pipeline would cause irreparable harm to the cultural heritag of the traditional owners. Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher says the company will shortly resume its drilling program, adding that the court ruling will have broad economic benefits.

CORPORATES
SANTOS LIMITED – ASX STO, FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Secrecy of Bernard Collaery trial risked damaging public’s faith in administration of justice, court rules

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Original article by Sarah Basford Canales
The Guardian Australia – Page: Online : 10-Jan-24

The former Coalition government is under further scrutiny over the Bernard Collaery whistleblower case. The ACT has released details of a judgment in which it concluded that the Coalition’s decision to allow much of Collaery’s trial to remain behind closed doors had put too more emphasis on the issue of national security rather than the administration of justice. The court removed many of the secrecy provisions after deeming that "no risk to national security would materialise". Labor dropped the charges against Collaery several months after winning the 2022 election.

CORPORATES
COURT OF APPEAL (AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY), AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY

Absolutely no political cover-up of Higgins’ alleged rape’

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Original article by Joanna Panagopoulos
The Australian – Page: 1 & 5 : 20-Dec-23

Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against the Ten Network and presenter Lisa Wilkinson continued in the Federal Court on Tuesday. Fiona Brown, the former chief of staff for senator Linda Reynolds, refuted suggestions that the alleged rape of Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins had been covered up. Brown also said Higgins had disclosed that she could remember Lehrmann being "on top of me" but had not made an allegation of rape. Wilkinson has previously told the court that she believed that Brown and Reynolds were "knowing participants in a systemic cover-up" of Higgins’ alleged rape. Lehrmann has consistently denied that he raped Higgins. The court will hear closing submissions in the case on Thursday.

CORPORATES
FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA, LIBERAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA

Qantas flights detailed before Joyce sale

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Original article by Ayesha de Kretser
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 17 : 9-Nov-23

Documents filed in the Federal Court show that on 29 May Qantas provided the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission with the details of more than 18,000 flights it had cancelled. This was just three days before chairman Richard Goyder approved the sale of $17m worth of the airline’s shares by former CEO Alan Joyce. The ACCC has launched legal action alleging that Qantas had engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by selling tickets for flights that it had already cancelled.

CORPORATES
QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED – ASX QAN, AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION

Court urged to make example of CBA on pay

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Original article by David Marin-Guzman
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 3 : 13-Sep-23

The Federal Court has been urged to impose the maximum penalty on the Commonwealth Bank of Australia for underpaying about 7,4000 employees some $16m over more than a decade. Michael Seck, the lawyer representing the Fair Work Ombudsman, contended that the penalty must be sufficient to deter other large companies from underpaying their staff. The bank had self-reported the underpayments to the FWO and has provided back-pay to all affected employees. The underpayments occured after CBA shifted affected employees from an enterprise agreement to individual agreements.

CORPORATES
COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA – ASX CBA, FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA. FAIR WORK OMBUDSMAN

Environmentalists take Tanya Plibersek to court over coal mine assessments

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Original article by Mike Foley
Brisbane Times – Page: Online : 6-Jun-23

The Environment Council of Central Queensland has launched legal action against Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek in the Federal Court. The Council is asking the court to review Plibersek’s decision not to take global warming into account when assessing Mach Energy’s application to expand its Mount Pleasant open-cut coal mine and Whitehaven Coal’s application to expand its Narrabri underground mine; both mines are in NSW. The Council is being represented in court by Environmental Justice Australia, with senior lawyer Retta Berryman saying if the judicial review is successful it could compel all coal and gas projects to be assessed for climate change impacts.

CORPORATES
ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL OF CENTRAL QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF CLIMATE CHANGE, ENERGY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER, MACH ENERGY, WHITEHAVEN COAL LIMITED – ASX WHC, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AUSTRALIA

NAB faces test case over unpaid overtime

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Original article by David Marin-Guzman
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 4 : 8-Mar-23

The issue of ‘reasonable additional hours’ for white-collar workers will come under scrutiny in a test case launched by the Finance Sector Union. The case centres on four National Australia Bank managers who allege that they were required to work unreasonable unpaid hours over several years. The FSU’s national secretary Julia Angrisano says the NAB managers are nominally employed to work 38 hours a week, but their actual hours can range between 10 and 16 hours per day, every day of the week. Angrisano adds that the FSU will seek compensation for all of NAB’s managers if it wins the test case, while it would also pursue action against the nation’s other major banks.

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NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LIMITED – ASX NAB, FINANCE SECTOR UNION

Elders’ heartbreak at Fortescue mine brawl

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Original article by Paul Garvey
The Australian – Page: 7 : 8-Mar-23

The Federal Court has been told that Fortescue Metals Group iron ore mining operations in the Pilbara have split the Yindjibarndi people and resulted in an ongoing feud between them. The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation was granted exclusive native title rights in 2017 to the land that now comprises Fortescue’s Solomon mining hub. Yindjibarndi elders Margaret Read and Tootsie Daniel have told the Federal Court that their people became divided following the formation of a breakaway group called the Wirlu-Murra Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation, which has since secured lucrative contracts at the Solomon hub. They also expressed their anguish over the impact that mining has had on the Yindjibarndi people’s land.

CORPORATES
FORTESCUE METALS GROUP LIMITED – ASX FMG, YINDJIBARNDI ABORIGINAL CORPORATION, WIRLU-MURRA YINDJIBARNDI ABORIGINAL CORPORATION

Teal MP Ryan sued over sacking for unreasonable hours

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Original article by Ronald Mizen, Michael Read
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 3 : 1-Feb-23

The enterprise agreement for staff of federal MPs provides for them to receive an allowance for when they are required to work "reasonable additional hours" over and above the ordinary hours of duty. The court application filed by Sally Rugg shows that the former chief of staff to independent MP Monique Ryan alleges that she was sacked for refusing to work "unreasonable" hours. Rugg will contend that her dismissal constitutes a breach of the Fair Work Act because it was in response to her exercising a workplace right. She is seeking an injunction to prevent her termination from taking effect until the dispute is resolved, as well as compensation from Ryan and the federal government. The enterprise agreement does not define what constitutes "reasonable hours".

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Dozens more cases expose CFMEU to maximum fines

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Original article by David Marin-Guzman
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 5 : 19-Jan-23

Court records show that the Fair Work Ombudsman is currently handling 35 open cases involving the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining & Energy Union. This includes five appeals launched by the CFMEU and one appeal that was instigated by the defunct Australian Building & Construction Commission. The ABCC’s case load was transferred to the FWO after the building industry watchdog was abolished in late 2022. Steven Amendola of law firm Kingston Reid says the CFMEU could potentially face total fines in excess of $5m if judges impose maximum or near-maximum penalties in each case.

CORPORATES
CONSTRUCTION, FORESTRY, MARITIME, MINING AND ENERGY UNION OF AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA. FAIR WORK OMBUDSMAN, AUSTRALIAN BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION COMMISSION, KINGSTON REID