Critics beware … Ten years after a “pungent” restaurant review, Fairfax is ordered to pay three former restaurateurs $160,000 apiece in damages … Continued publication of the review online adds aggravation … more
Year: 2013
Helen Liu v The Age Company Ltd & Ors
Last orders, or not … The long and bitter battle over disclosure of The Age’s sources continues in the NSW Supreme Court, with Justice Lucy McCallum set to decide another threshold question almost four years after publication ... more
Kim Ahmed v Harbour Radio Pty Ltd & Ray Hadley
The wife of a convicted child sex offender is awarded damages of $280,000 for “an unbridled tirade” by 2GB’s Ray Hadley, in which he called her “a grub” and a “silly woman”, among other things … more
Highlights and lowlights of 2013
It has been an interesting, sometimes tumultuous year in the media and in media law … The Gazette asked a handful of local luminaries to nominate some highlights and lowlights of the year that was ... more
The IP year in review
2013 has been a year of change for IP law on a global scale … Rocco Rinaldo reviews the rise of the patent troll, the progress of new IP laws and a landmark High Court decision on the patentability of medical treatments ... more
Judgments, judgments, judgments
Fresh from a weighty judge-alone murder trial and a guilty finding, NSW Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum is called upon to decide an array of interlocutory matters ... Including the final act of Chinese businesswoman Helen Liu’s bid to uncover the sources for an Age story ... more
Internet research jurors “should face criminal charge”
The (UK) Law Commission has just released its report on jurors and the internet … This article looks at the proposed new criminal offence of juror contempt ... more
Open justice in NSW and Victoria
It has been three and half years since the NSW government passed an act that promises to give the media and public easier access to court information … So what has happened, and how does it compare to Victoria? Alix Piatek investigates … more
John Setka v Tony Abbott & Australian News Channel Pty Ltd
Unionist John Setka fails to convince the Victorian Court of Appeal that it should hear an appeal over a decision which dismissed his application to have defences pleaded by Tony Abbott and Sky News struck out ... more
Shift2neutral Pty Ltd v Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd
Carbon-offset company comes under scrutiny in defamation action brought by its founder against Fairfax Media … Acting Justice Henric Nicholas raises doubts about the admissibility of expert reports ... more
A year after Leveson: Has British press cleaned up its act?
It is a year since Lord Justice Leveson released his damning report on the British press … In this article, Goldsmiths, University of London Professor of Media and Communications Des Freedman argues that in that time the power of the press has effectively stymied change ... more
Kim Ahmed v Harbour Radio Pty Ltd & Ray Hadley
A NSW Supreme Court jury finds Ray Hadley’s defamation of the wife of a convicted child sex offender indefensible … This despite Justice Henric Nicholas directing a verdict for the defendant in relation to three imputations ... more