LAW – AUSTRALIA – CASES

Unions build case for same job, same pay

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Original article by Euan Black
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 7 : 21-Jan-25

The Mining & Energy Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union are testing the federal government’s ‘same work, same pay’ laws in the Federal Court. They want workers at three BHP mines who are employed either by labour hire firms or BHP units and who are doing the same jobs as people directly employed by BHP to be paid the same amount, with the federal court hearing the difference in pay between those directly employed by BHP and those who are not being but are performing the same role can be as much as $49,000 a year. Should BHP lose the case, its estimates suggest it will have to pay an extra $1.3 billion a year.

CORPORATES
MINING AND ENERGY UNION, AUSTRALIAN MANUFACTURING WORKERS’ UNION, FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA, BHP GROUP LIMITED – ASX BHP

Labor stares down furious CFMEU’s court challenge

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Original article by Ewin Hannan
The Australian – Page: 2 : 4-Sep-24

The CFMEU’s former national president Jade Ingham says legislation to appoint an administrator to its construction division is "unconstitutional and undemocratic". He has launched a legal challenge to the legislation in the High Court, contending that the laws could potentially be used to target any organisation that "gets off-side" of the federal government. Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have stated that the federal government had expected a legal challenge and has prepared for it.

CORPORATES
CONSTRUCTION, FORESTRY AND MARITIME EMPLOYEES UNION, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET

Fortescue insists spying on families wasn’t inappropriate

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Original article by Angelica Snowden
The Australian – Page: 13 & 16 : 21-Aug-24

Fortescue is being represented by Julian Cooke SC in its intellectual property dispute with ‘green iron’ start-up Element Zero. The company was founded by former Fortescue employees Bart Kolodziejczyk, Bjorn Winther-Jensen and Michael Masterman, allegedly using the iron ore miner’s intellectual property. Cooke has defenced Fortescue’s use of a private investigator to place the three executives and their families under surveillance, telling the Federal Court that there was a real risk that information pertaining to the pending court case could have been destroyed. The surveillance operation was followed by raids on the homes and business premises of the Element Zero directors

CORPORATES
FORTESCUE LIMITED – ASX FMG, ELEMENT ZERO PTY LTD, FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Fortescue ‘portrayed former execs as dishonest’, court told

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Original article by Angelica Snowden
The Australian – Page: 13 & 16 : 20-Aug-24

Element Zero is seeking to have search orders awarded to Fortescue in May by Federal Court judge Melissa Perry thrown out; Parry granted the orders on the back of allegations that former Fortescue executives who are now directors of Element Zero had stolen Fortescue’s intellectual property. In trying to convince Federal Court judge Brigitte Markovic that the orders granted by Parry should be thrown out, the Element Zero directors told the court on Monday that Fortescue had sought to portray them as ‘shady actors’ who were seeking to steal its ‘green iron secrets’ so as to justify its request for the orders, which saw it raid their homes and offices.

CORPORATES
FORTESCUE LIMITED – ASX FMG, ELEMENT ZERO PTY LTD, FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

War crimes whistleblower jailed for nearly six years

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Original article by Michael Pelly
The Australian Financial Review – Page: Online : 15-May-24

Defence whistleblower David McBride will spend a minimum of 27 months in prison for providing classified military documents to journalists. The ACT Supreme Court has sentenced McBride to five years and eight months in jail, and he will be eligible for parole in August 2026. Justice David Mossop said the former military lawyer’s actions were a "gross breach of trust" of his position in the Australian Defence Force, and others must be deterred from engaging in similar conduct. The leaked documents were subsequently used as the basis for a series of media reports on Australian solders’ alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

CORPORATES
SUPREME COURT OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY, AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE

More staff come forward in Super Retail legal case

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Original article by Carrie LaFrenz, Ayesha de Kretser
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 15 : 30-Apr-24

Harmers Workplace Lawyers has confirmed that it is acting for four female employees at Super Retail Group who are seeking compensation over alleged governance breaches, including an undisclosed relationship between CEO Anthony Heraghty and its former head of HR, Jane Kelly. Harmers has stated that more staff have come forward to join the action after Super Retail Group disclosed the relationship in an announcement on Friday, with the company stating that it expected two employees to bring a claim for between $30 million and $50 million alleging governance failures, including the non-disclosure of the romance between Heraghty and Kelly.

CORPORATES
SUPER RETAIL GROUP LIMITED – ASX SUL, HARMERS WORKPLACE LAWYERS

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