Category: Costs

Alan Jones could have saved broadcasters over $1 million in damages, plus costs, if he had agreed to the plaintiffs' apology ... Indemnity costs for the Wagners up to the trial ... Calderbank offer ... A counter offer from the plaintiffs required an extensive apology from Jones ... Struggle over the language for an apology ... Costs followed the event for Nicholas Cater ... Stephen Murray reports ... more

Fairfax fails to secure indemnity costs for property develop's failed defamation claim ... Financial Review article found to be about Meriton and not the proprietor ... Respondents earlier offer to settle not confined to the ground on which they were ultimately successful ... Stephen Murray reports ... more

Plaintiff should have been aware that Nationwide News had a strong case once the particulars of the truth defence were filed ... Indemnity costs awarded to newspaper for the entire length of the trial ... A highly unusual case ... Louise Hall reporting ... more

Melbourne criminal barrister who won defamation action against The Age refused costs on an indemnity basis … He failed to disclose two documents critical to a resolution of the dispute … Victorian Supreme Court Justice John Dixon finds they were withheld for “forensic advantage” ... more

NSW Supreme Justice John Sackar comes down hard on Amber Harrison over proceedings “engulfed in a vitriolic atmosphere”... The former lover of Seven boss Tim Worner is found to have breached her deed of release in multiple ways and is ordered to pay Seven’s costs on an indemnity basis ... more

A self-styled anti-Uber “vigilante” who was permanently restrained from making defamatory tweets and engaging in the tort of intimidation ordered to pay gross sum of $390,000 … The defendant, an undischarged bankrupt, makes no appearance ... more

NSW Defamation List Judge Lucy McCallum refuses to grant the Nine Network security for costs from Stephen Dank, despite his “comprehensive loss” against Nationwide News … Guardian Australia fails to get indemnity costs from a man whose action was permanently stayed ... more

Joe Hockey to pay 85 per cent of his costs in the defamation action he partially won against Fairfax Media over an investigation into his role in securing political donations … The treasurer’s bid to permanently injunct three publishers and the editor in chief of The Sydney Morning Herald fails ... more

Justice Richard White to decide between two wildly disparate views of costs culpability … Hockey’s lawyers ask for 95 per cent of his costs on an indemnity basis … Lawyers for Fairfax Media say Hockey should pay 60 per cent of the publisher’s costs, given that only three out of 15 matters complained of defamed the Commonwealth treasurer … Plaintiff’s offers of compromise rejected … Read all the submissions in full ... more

Nine years after the event, self-styled Muslim community spokesman Keysar Trad loses his bid to set aside a certificate of costs and judgment to the tune of $290,000 ... more

Book publisher succeeds in obtaining $500,000 security for costs in case brought by a man who claims he was accused of murdering his backpacker girlfriend … The plaintiff’s use of “top end of town” lawyers is a factor ... more

Feuding members of Newcastle’s Indian community run up costs of almost $600,000 over two emails before abandoning their legal representation … NSW District Court Judge Judith Gibson refuses the defendants a security for costs order ... more