Taxi Council executive sues anti-Uber activist over barrage of tweets … Take 5 magazine sued over “Unfair dinkum” cover and article … More mafia matters from Melbourne … The Wagners sue 2GB, Alan Jones, The Spectator, Nick Cater and the Nine Network … Nine sued over news report … Image search engines Bing and Yahoo targeted by previously successful plaintiff ... more
Year: 2015
“A great addition to legal scholarship”
More praise (none of it faint) for Dr David Rolph’s scholarly new book Defamation Law ... QLD Supreme Court Justice Peter Applegarth explains why it deserves to be the go-to text for defamation law reform ... more
The IP year in review
Test cases, new legislation, final judgments, important treaties and international conferences … Rocco Rinaldo reviews the Australian IP year that was ... more
Settlement rush
Settlements in a number of high profile actions … Special leave that needs to be special … Legal eagle news in defamation circles ... more
Protecting journalist sources
Slowly but surely Australian courts are applying the new shield laws protecting journalists from disclosing their sources … Media lawyer Peter Barlett reviews this trend in the wake of an important Victorian decision ... more
Antonio Madafferi v The Age & Ors
Strong judgment in favour of the protection of sources … Melbourne man named as mafia boss by The Age loses bid to identify the sources for a series of stories … Journalist privilege prevails ... more
Brendan French v Michael Fraser (No 3)
Self-styled consumer advocate “The Arbitrator” ordered to pay Commonwealth Bank customer relations supremo $300,000 damages over a scurrilous campaign of internet defamation, part of “a senseless vendetta founded in madness” … more
Book Review: Defamation Law
Sydney University media law academic Dr David Rolph has just published his fourth book, Defamation Law ... It is “a vital contribution, not only to the identification and clarification of defamation law, but to the law reform debate generally”, says the NSW District Court’s Defamation List Judge Judith Gibson ... more
Justine Munsie & Ors v Shane Dowling (No 7)
The defamation action brought by Sydney media lawyer Justine Munsie, her client Seven West Media chair Kerry Stokes, and his son, will go to a final hearing after the plaintiffs succeed in having a persistent blogger’s defence struck out, again … His allegations are “scandalous” ... more
Question Time – Lucy McCallum
NSW Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum manages the country’s biggest defamation list and has delivered some controversial media law judgments involving journalist’s sources and the offer of amends and contextual truth defences … She agreed to expose her thinking on these issues, and much more, in this exclusive interview ... more
Lucy McCallum – Part 2
“Dennis Denuto”, triviality and proportionality
Queensland’s recent “Dennis Denuto” defamation case illustrates the relationship between triviality and proportionality and highlights the lack of uniformity in Australian defamation law, says media law academic and author Dr David Rolph ... more