Case notes

In July 2026 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held unanimously that section 42(3) of the Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 2021 (WA), which requires a party applying for adjudication review to give the other party a copy of the application within one business day, is a jurisdictional requirement. By majority (Free JA and McHugh JA, Ward P dissenting on that question and in the result), the court also held that emailing a link to the application documents held in an online repository did not give them "by email" under section 113(3)(d) of that Act, so the review adjudicator lacked jurisdiction and the appeal was allowed.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 15 July 2026

In the version the Court applied, sections 28M, 28O and 28R of the Victorian security of payment Act are not inconsistent with the Australian Consumer Law, so a principal whose claim of misleading conduct goes only to final entitlements must pay the adjudicated amount (subject to any stay of execution) and pursue that claim separately.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 9 June 2026

In February 2026 the New South Wales Court of Appeal, applying the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), held that an adjudicator's decision that he lacked jurisdiction, made after the period for an adjudication response had ended and after he had considered both parties' material, was a "determination" for the purposes of the Act. It also found no error in the primary judge's conclusion that the claimant's fresh application to a second adjudicator was an abuse of process, and dismissed the claimant's appeal with costs.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 10 February 2026

In 2025 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that a builder suing for a statutory debt under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) (the Act) had not shown a "construction contract", because, viewed objectively, the communications and conduct, including an email agreeing to commercial conditions while looking to a later formal contract, did not show an intention to be bound immediately. The court also held that a party relying on an "other arrangement" in the Act's definition must plead the material facts said to make it up, and it limited an indemnity costs order to the period from the date of a Calderbank offer that the builder had unreasonably not accepted.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 4 November 2025

Under the New South Wales security of payment Act, the 10 business days a respondent has to provide a payment schedule run from when the payment claim is served under the Act, and a contract clause deeming an after-hours email to be received on the next business day cannot extend that period.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 23 July 2025

In 2025 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that a respondent which had served no payment schedule could not resist summary judgment under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) by arguing that the payment claim was in substance a claim for damages or restitution. Free JA, with whom McHugh and Ball JJA agreed, applied EnerMech Pty Ltd v Acciona Infrastructure Projects Australia Pty Ltd: the Act implies no precondition to validity that a payment claim be objectively one "for" construction work. On a test the parties accepted, the court also held that the claim, read with its spreadsheet and the earlier invoices it referred to, purported in a reasonable way to identify the work, so that there was no patent failure to identify it, and it ordered summary judgment for the claimant.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 19 June 2025

Under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), the New South Wales Court of Appeal held, by majority (Leeming JA, with whom Free JA agreed; Adamson JA dissenting), that an adjudicator who applied a supposed "Cardno test", disregarding substantiating documents first supplied with the adjudication application because they would probably have altered the payment schedule, made an error that was not jurisdictional, and dismissed the appeal. All three judges held that the test was an error of law, but Leeming JA treated that ground as one that could not decide the appeal.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 18 June 2025

The New South Wales Court of Appeal held, under that State's security of payment Act, that property owners who had dealt by email with invoices described as payment claims under that Act had impliedly specified the email address for service, so a payment claim and a notice of intention to apply for adjudication were served when emailed there and the adjudicator had jurisdiction, although neither came to the owners' attention until weeks later. The Court also held that, had the documents been served only on 11 June 2024, when the owners became aware of them, the adjudication application would have been premature and the determination void. The appeal was dismissed.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 16 May 2025

In December 2023 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that a letter of demand sent by the solicitors for a construction company's administrators, with updated tax invoices attached, was not a payment claim under section 13 of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) when read objectively and as a whole. The recipient's failure to serve a payment schedule in reply therefore did not make it liable under the Act for the $545,353.18 demanded, and its appeal was allowed with costs.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 14 December 2023

In 2023 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that an email answering a payment claim was not a payment schedule under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) (the Act), because it gave no reason of the required kind for withholding payment of the variations, a distinct and substantial component of the claim. The court said that, in general, a response that gives no reason directed to such a component does not sufficiently indicate why the scheduled amount is less than the amount claimed.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 13 December 2023

Under the New South Wales Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999, only a substantial denial of procedural fairness by an adjudicator is jurisdictional error, and on the facts there was none where the adjudicator adopted and confirmed conversion rates the claimant had applied without explanation.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 2 November 2023

Under the New South Wales Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999, as it stood before amendments in 2019, any requirement that a payment claim relate to only one construction contract is for the adjudicator, not a precondition to validity; on the facts, the work orders in issue did not each create a separate contract, at least for the subcontract's Category B works.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 3 June 2022

In 2021 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that an email telling a subcontractor there would be "no payment for above Invoices, until all works been completed" did not indicate why nothing was to be paid, as section 14(3) of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) required, and that earlier emails not incorporated into it could not be used to give it the particularity it lacked. The subcontractor was given judgment for its two payment claims with interest.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 9 September 2021

On an application for leave to appeal from a judgment for part of the claimed amount under section 16(2)(a)(i) of the Victorian security of payment Act (as amended in 2006, in the form the Court set out), a majority of the Court of Appeal held that section 16(4)(a)(ii) prevents judgment for the claimant, even for the balance, if the claimed amount indicated in the payment claim includes an excluded amount; leave was granted, the appeal allowed and the claim dismissed. All three judges rejected the argument that the court must look beyond the payment claim and its supporting documents to decide that question, although the majority did not need to decide it.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 5 March 2021

Under the Victorian security of payment Act, as it applied to a 2019 payment claim, an adjudicator may infer from a respondent's failure to provide a payment schedule that it was not in a position to contest the payment claim, and section 23(2)(b) requires the adjudicator to consider the provisions of the contract the parties executed but not documents incorporated into it by reference, such as drawings, unless the parties provide them or the adjudicator requires them; the Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal from the Trial Division's dismissal of the judicial review proceeding and dismissed the appeal.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 25 September 2020

In 2020 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held, under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), that a contractor's statutory entitlement to a progress payment, which arose on a reference date before the principal took the work out of the contractor's hands, was not extinguished by that take-out. It also held that an adjudicator who expressly declined to determine the amount of the progress payment had committed jurisdictional error and that the contractor did not have to obtain a court declaration that the first determination was void before it applied for a second adjudication.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 11 August 2020

In 2020 the New South Wales Court of Appeal refused developers leave to appeal from a refusal to stay execution of a judgment entered against them under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) after they failed to serve a payment schedule. In joint reasons explaining why no point of principle warranted leave, Bell P, Macfarlan and Leeming JJA found nothing in the principles for staying such a judgment where the builder may be unable to repay to suggest that they apply to a judgment debtor that says it cannot pay, and held that section 32 of the Act speaks to the parties' legal rights, not to the practical effect of enforcement on them.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 19 June 2020

In 2018 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that, under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) as it then stood, the scope of a payment claim was a matter for the adjudicator, and an error in understanding the payment claim was not a jurisdictional error for which the determination could be quashed. Basten JA, with whom Meagher and Leeming JJA agreed, allowed the head contractor's appeal against an order quashing an adjudicator's determination.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 21 December 2018

On an application for leave to appeal, the Court of Appeal held that, under the Victorian security of payment Act, an adjudicator's failure to determine an adjudication application within the time allowed by section 22(4) does not make the determination void, and that the appeal and the builder's notice of contention should be dismissed.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 13 November 2018

Under the South Australian security of payment Act, a retention clause under which release depended on completion of the head contract was a pay when paid provision of no effect, so the adjudicator made no error of law.

High Court of Australia, 14 February 2018

Under the New South Wales security of payment Act, the Supreme Court cannot quash an adjudicator's determination for an error of law on the face of the record that is not a jurisdictional error.

High Court of Australia, 14 February 2018

Under the New South Wales Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999, an adjudicator who rejected a head contractor's liquidated damages set-off by inferentially applying the prevention principle did not deny it procedural fairness, where it had itself put an extension of time in issue and the subcontractor had raised acts of prevention.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 23 June 2017

In 2017 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that a builder which had filed an adjudication certificate as a judgment under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) did not have to notify the developer before enforcing that judgment by a garnishee order. Granting leave but dismissing the appeal, the court also declined to disturb the primary judge's discretionary refusal to set the garnishee order aside and order repayment, where the developer had challenged the determination but had sought no undertaking or interlocutory relief.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 23 March 2017

Under the New South Wales security of payment Act as it then stood, a valid payment claim had to be supported by a reference date; on the contract in this case, none arose once the remaining work was taken out of the contractor's hands (suspending payment) or, alternatively, once the contract was terminated.

High Court of Australia, 21 December 2016

Under section 10A(3)(d)(ii) of the Victorian security of payment Act, a dispute clause that ends in mediation and then recourse to the courts is not a "method of resolving disputes" that takes disputed variations outside adjudication, and where section 11(1)(b) governs valuation and the contract allows the superintendent's pricing to be disputed, the adjudicator is not bound to adopt that pricing.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 26 May 2016

Under the Victorian security of payment Act, the Court of Appeal held that the fixing of the reference date for a final payment claim under section 9(2)(d) is a jurisdictional fact reviewable on judicial review, and dismissed a claimant's appeal from a decision that his payment claim was out of time and the adjudication determination of no legal effect.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 27 November 2015

A majority of the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that, where an adjudicator issued only a void determination, a claimant's five business days for a new adjudication application under section 26 of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) ran from the end of the time for a valid determination, not from a later declaration of voidness.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 16 December 2011

Under the New South Wales Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999, where no payment schedule was provided and the claim was not paid in full, notice within the time fixed by section 17(2)(a) is an essential condition of a valid adjudication application, and the Supreme Court may quash a determination where the notice was late.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 24 September 2010

In 2009 the New South Wales Court of Appeal, applying Brodyn Pty Ltd v Davenport under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) as it then stood, held that what a payment schedule indicated as its reasons was a matter for the adjudicator, and that an error by the adjudicator about it did not make the determination void. Giles JA, with whom McColl and Young JJA agreed, also considered, although it was not necessary to the result, that a payment schedule could indicate reasons by referring to an earlier payment schedule.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 23 June 2009

In 2009 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that, under the State's security of payment Act as it then stood, a claimant could not obtain judgment on a later payment claim for amounts that an adjudicator determined on an earlier claim. Macfarlan JA, with whom Handley AJA agreed, held that issue estoppel applied to the issues the adjudicator decided; Allsop P decided the case under section 13(5) and left the estoppel question open.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 15 April 2009

In 2008 the New South Wales Court of Appeal, applying principles from Brodyn Pty Ltd v Davenport that were not challenged on the appeal, held under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) as it then stood that an adjudication determination was not invalid even if the adjudicator erred in law in valuing the payment claim, because he had addressed the task the Act set him and dealt with the parties' submissions. The Court also rejected a procedural fairness challenge and an argument that the principal's payment of a subcontractor had been impliedly requested or adopted by the claimant.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 31 October 2008

In 2007 the New South Wales Court of Appeal, deciding the appeal on a basis favourable to the contractor, held that, under the contract before it, the principal could properly retain the contractor's performance security as security for its claim to recover adjudicated amounts it had paid under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW). Giles JA, with whom Tobias and McColl JJA agreed, also held that retaining the security in that way did not offend the Act's prohibition on contracting out.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 18 June 2007

In 2007 the New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from a decision that an adjudicator's determination under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), as it then stood, was void, although its reasons differed in part from the trial judge's. Giles JA, with whom Santow JA and Tobias JA agreed, held that an adjudicator who arrives at the adjudicated amount by a process wholly unrelated to the matters section 22(2) requires the adjudicator to consider has not made a determination. This adjudicator, having said he had no evidence on which to value the work independently, had adopted the claimant's valuation because the respondent had made unmeritorious challenges to the payment claim's validity.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 28 February 2007

In the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, McDougall J dismissed a natural justice and good faith challenge to an adjudicator's determination under the New South Wales security of payment Act, holding that the adjudication response and statutory declaration need be considered only as submissions supporting the payment schedule and that the delay costs valuation stayed within the dispute joined [5], [22], [65], [85], [86], [87].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 19 January 2007

Hearing an injunction application as the trial of the action, Kaye J in the Practice Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria held that a notice referring a dispute to a contractual Dispute Committee of the parties' own representatives, whose role was to reach agreement, did not commence the kind of proceedings the Victorian Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act requires before a respondent may give security instead of paying an adjudicated amount, so Vaughan, the payment claimant, could enforce the guarantee [1], [2], [26], [28], [29].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 29 November 2006

In 2006 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that section 109X of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) applied to the provision of a payment schedule to a company under the State's security of payment Act as it then stood, so a schedule left at the claimant's registered office during office hours was provided when it was left. On a point Equity did not contest and which did not affect the result, the Court also said that, under the Act as it then stood, the primary judge was wrong to find that section 13 barred a further payment claim for the same amount within the twelve-month limit.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 19 September 2006

In 2006 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that section 15(4)(b)(ii) of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), as it then stood, did not stop a respondent sued for an unpaid claimed amount from defending on the ground that the claimant's alleged misleading conduct had caused its failure to provide a payment schedule. Two of the three judges also held that a valid payment claim did not require a bona fide belief in the entitlement claimed.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 28 August 2006

In 2005 the New South Wales Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal but dismissed an appeal from a summary judgment entered against a respondent to a payment claim in proceedings under section 15 of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), after no payment schedule had been served. All three judges agreed that the respondent's defence, that the payment claim did not identify the work, did not prevent summary judgment. Hodgson JA and Santow JA gave separate reasons, and Santow JA disagreed with part of Hodgson JA's test. Ipp JA, for the reasons given by Hodgson JA, treated compliance as a matter for adjudication rather than a ground for resisting summary judgment, whereas Santow JA considered that it could be raised in resisting summary judgment in an appropriate case.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 23 November 2005

In 2005 the New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from a judgment for a contractor, Isis Projects Pty Ltd, for a statutory debt under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), as the Act then stood. Mason P, with whom Giles JA and Santow JA agreed, held that two progress claims sufficiently identified the construction work to which they related, read objectively and in the context of the parties' earlier dealings. He also rejected an argument by Clarence Street Pty Ltd, which had served no payment schedule, that the due date for payment had not arrived because the claims had not met the contract's requirements for claims for payment: the argument was barred by section 15(4)(b)(ii), and it failed in any event on the facts and on the terms of the contract.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 16 November 2005

In 2005 the New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed a contractor's appeal against the refusal of relief from an adjudication determination that allowed its subcontractor's contractual "delay damages", all three judges rejecting the argument that, under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) as it then stood, such amounts could not be payments "for construction work".

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 13 July 2005

In 2005 the New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed a contractor's appeal against the refusal of relief from two adjudication determinations that included a subcontractor's contractual "delay damages", all three judges accepting that, under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) as it then stood, such delay damages could amount to payments "for construction work".

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 13 July 2005

In the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, after an adjudication determination under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) had been held valid, Einstein J held that funds paid into court by the head contractor were to be released to the subcontractor under an enforceable agreement, and that the Grosvenor principle, applicable only where the claimant is actually or very close to insolvent, did not prevent release [1], [3], [20], [22], [59], [61], [69].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 17 June 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Byrne J dismissed a subcontractor's appeal and refused it leave to proceed against a head contractor bound by a deed of company arrangement, where the subcontractor sought judgment on an adjudicated amount under the Victorian security of payment legislation only to recover that amount from the principal [7], [17], [18], [19].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 18 February 2005

In the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Nicholas J held, on the single issue left for decision, that an arrangement under which a nominated subcontractor undertook joinery work for a developer was a construction contract within the New South Wales security of payment Act, because the arrangement need not impose a legally enforceable liability to pay, and that the developer's summons to have an adjudicator's determination declared void should be dismissed [5], [41], [43], [55], [56], [58].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 11 February 2005

In the Supreme Court of New South Wales, McDougall J gave a contractor judgment for its payment claim under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), holding that the principal's letter proposing to pay nothing was in form a valid payment schedule but was not provided because his Honour found it was not posted [2], [30], [46], [49], [58].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 9 December 2004

In 2004 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that, under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) (the Act), as it then stood, a payment claim met the twelve-month limit for service if some of the work for which payment was claimed had been carried out in that period, even though one item in the claim had been completed more than twelve months before service.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 3 November 2004

In the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, McDougall J dismissed a summons to quash an adjudicator's determination under the New South Wales security of payment Act as amended, holding that the existence of a reference date was not a jurisdictional fact and that contractual preparation costs and delay costs could form part of a progress payment calculated under the contract, and that although allowing compound interest (if the adjudicator did) exceeded jurisdiction, relief should be refused in discretion [26], [39], [42], [43], [106], [121], [122], [136], [137], [138].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 23 July 2004

In the Supreme Court of New South Wales, on a motion to stay execution of a judgment entered on an adjudication certificate under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act (NSW), Einstein J held that where the claimant's insolvency made it certain that the respondent's right to recoup the adjudicated amount would be rendered nugatory, the proper exercise of the discretion was to stay execution on terms, especially as a bank guarantee apparently already protected the claimant [31], [32], [33], [35], [36].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 27 April 2004

This judgment of McDougall J in the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales concerned an adjudication under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) [1]. His Honour held that the ten business day limit in section 21(3)(a) is a procedural condition, so that a determination made after it is not for that reason invalid [6], [21]. At a final hearing held by agreement, he dismissed MPM's amended summons with costs [5], [36].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 27 February 2004

In the Administrative Law List of the Common Law Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, McDougall J held that TransGrid's summons for judicial review of an adjudicator's determination under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act should be dismissed, because the adjudicator was not bound by the Superintendent's certificate, any error in finding variations directed in writing was within jurisdiction because he had sought to apply the contract and TransGrid, having offered no evidence of its own, was not denied natural justice [32], [33], [54], [65], [66], [71].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 6 February 2004

In the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Einstein J held that a builder should have summary judgment on a payment claim under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act (NSW) as it then stood, because the claim was valid despite including old rock excavation work and delay costs and the superintendent's certificate was not a payment schedule [102], [104], [106], [112]. His Honour also held that the principal's separate proceedings should be summarily dismissed, among other reasons as an abuse of process [108].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 3 December 2003

In the Supreme Court of New South Wales, McDougall J dismissed a summons seeking certiorari and related relief against an adjudicator's determination under the Building & Construction Industry Security of Payment Act (NSW), holding that the Act's requirement to calculate and value in accordance with the terms of the contract refers to the contractual mechanism and not to the certifier, so the adjudicator was not bound by the architect's progress certificate and any error in assessing delay costs was within jurisdiction [38], [39], [46], [47], [55], [57]. The Act applied was the Building & Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), under which Renascent served its payment claim on 25 August 2003 [1].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 14 November 2003

In the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, McDougall J held that an adjudicator's determination under the New South Wales security of payment Act, as amended, is open to judicial review for jurisdictional error, including jurisdictional error of law, or for denial of natural justice, but not for non-jurisdictional error of law, and quashed a determination on both grounds [19], [40], [43], [45], [54], [109], [124], [145].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 31 October 2003

In 2002 the New South Wales Court of Appeal refused a main contractor leave to appeal from a judgment for its subcontractor on a payment claim under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW), as the Act then stood. Heydon JA, with whom Ipp AJA agreed, held that a payment claim could be served even though it related to work done in periods before the month of service, and rejected an argument that it had to be served at least ten business days before the contractual date for payment. Hodgson JA agreed with the orders and substantially with those reasons, but decided the case on a narrower basis; he left open whether one payment claim could include amounts due under several earlier progress claims and whether any time limit applied, preferring Heydon JA's view on the time limit only tentatively.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 26 July 2002

In December 2025 the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that a developer's approval of a builder's claim for work within the contract scope did not make that work a variation, or displace a clause providing that payments other than the final payment were payments on account only. The developer obtained a credit for an approved claim for consultants' fees, but not for five paid claims, which were for excluded items that the builder was entitled to be paid for separately. The court also held that the date for practical completion had not been varied, so that liquidated damages of $210,000 were due. Where the builder had released parties whose liability was coordinate with the developer's in return for a sale of property to a company related to the builder at an undervalue, the developer's liability was reduced by the whole of the undervalue, because the builder had not proved that any part of the benefit related to something else. The appeal was allowed and judgment entered for the developer.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 5 December 2025

The Court of Appeal of Victoria, answering questions in a special case referred by the County Court, held that section 137F(1) of the Building Act 1993 (Vic) requires a payment to a lot owner for the State to be subrogated to that lot owner's rights, and that a November 2020 payment of cladding rectification assistance to an owners corporation acting both for itself and for the lot owners is such a payment. On the agreed and assumed facts, the State was subrogated to the rights of the owners corporation and the individual lot owners.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 11 April 2025

The High Court, by four Justices to one, dismissed appeals by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (the ACCC) in a secondary boycott case under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth). Gageler CJ, Gleeson and Beech-Jones JJ held that a person who gives in to a threat of industrial action by doing what is demanded, without communicating to the person making the threat, expressly or tacitly, a commitment to do so, has not thereby arrived at an understanding with the person making the threat for the purposes of sections 45E(3) and 45EA. Edelman J agreed in the result because the head contractor, J Hutchinson Pty Ltd (Hutchinson), communicated no assent to the union and the ACCC ran no case that the union had dispensed with the need for it. Steward J dissented.

High Court of Australia, 2 April 2025

Where a contract price for the whole of the building work is specified in an application for a staged building permit, the relevant building surveyor must give weight to that price as a fundamental element in estimating the cost on which the building permit levy is calculated, but may have regard to other relevant information and is not required to adopt the price as the estimate.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 28 June 2024

Refusing leave to appeal from VCAT on the apportionment grounds, the Victorian Court of Appeal held that owners' claims against the builder of the Lacrosse tower for breach of the warranties implied by the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (Vic) were not apportionable claims under the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic), because they did not arise from a failure to take reasonable care.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 26 March 2021

A builder that terminated a domestic building contract on accepting the owners' repudiation could not claim a quantum meruit for completed stages, for which its right to payment had accrued. By four to three, it could claim restitution for work done towards an uncompleted stage, as an alternative to damages. The majority limited that amount by reference to the contract price or the part of it attributable to the work, as an absolute cap for Gageler J and a prima facie one for Nettle, Gordon and Edelman JJ. Any amount for variations the owners requested had to be determined in accordance with sections 38 and 39 of the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (Vic).

High Court of Australia, 9 October 2019

In March 2017 the New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed a builder's appeal from a judgment for $11,612,013.53 for defective concrete pavements at a container terminal at Port Botany. Bathurst CJ, with whom Beazley P and Gleeson JA agreed, held that a deed assigning to a later lessee all the benefit of the builder's warranties passed the right to sue for breaches that had already occurred. The assignee's knowledge of cracking when it acquired the terminal did not mean it suffered no loss. It could recover the cost of replacing the pavement, apart from areas under the warehouse awnings, without any allowance for betterment. The order for indemnity costs at trial was also upheld.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 1 March 2017

Where a deed of settlement made an architect's final instalment payable on "Practical Completion", defined as the issue of a certificate under the contractual arrangements for the works, a superintendent's certificate that had not been set aside in arbitration or litigation satisfied that condition, and the owners' unpursued objections to its validity did not prevent payment falling due once the required documents were provided; leave to appeal was refused.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 6 October 2016

Where a building contract made bank guarantees available whenever the principal "may claim (acting reasonably) to be entitled to" payment, the judge hearing the contractor's application for an interlocutory injunction to restrain recourse should have construed that clause; as construed on the appeal, it required the principal to be acting reasonably in an objective sense when it made its claim, and the injunction was set aside.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 13 May 2015

In joint reasons on an appeal from the County Court, the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria held that the 10-year period in section 134 of the Building Act 1993 (Vic) governs an owner's contract claim against a building surveyor as well as claims in negligence and, in the alternative, that the amendment adding that claim related back to the original pleading. It held that section 17(a) of the Act did not create a contract between the owner and a surveyor engaged by the builder, and that the surveyor owed this owner no duty of care for its delay losses. Further disposition, including the surveyor's contention that no loss was proved, awaited submissions.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 6 August 2014

Under clause 44.6 of the building contract in this case, a Superintendent's certificate of the cost to complete work taken out of the builder's hands, which rested on a quantity surveyor's judgment, bound the parties because "ascertain" there permitted judgment where necessary; the builder's appeals were dismissed.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 26 July 2013

Where a sub-contract required work done before its determination, without fault by the sub-contractor, to be valued "according to clause 14", and there was neither a pricing schedule nor an agreed valuation, the Victorian Court of Appeal held that the trial judge was entitled to value the original scope work as a pro rata share of the lump sum price, adjusted for variations, rather than on a basis akin to quantum meruit. The Court also held that a letter which referred to the obligation to pay and proposed a discussion of claims was not a demand of payment for interest under section 58 of the Supreme Court Act 1986 (Vic) (the Act), so the award of interest was to be confined, under section 60, to the period after the proceeding began.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 18 December 2009

In 2007 the New South Wales Court of Appeal, deciding the appeal on a basis favourable to the contractor, held that, under the contract before it, the principal could properly retain the contractor's performance security as security for its claim to recover adjudicated amounts it had paid under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW). Giles JA, with whom Tobias and McColl JJA agreed, also held that retaining the security in that way did not offend the Act's prohibition on contracting out.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 18 June 2007

In the Commercial and Equity Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hansen J granted an interlocutory injunction restraining a head contractor from relying on its notice terminating a defence procurement subcontract for convenience, finding that the lower risk of injustice favoured an injunction on undertakings as to damages where a serious question was conceded as to whether an implied term of good faith and fair dealing qualified the power and was breached [49], [72], [101].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 15 June 2007

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hargrave J held that a mediated term of settlement requiring an owner to pay unpaid amounts due under payment certificates obliged it to pay the sum it had deducted from a certificate for liquidated damages, because the settlement released that claim and payments under the certificates were on account [24], [25], [27], [29], [30].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 15 February 2007

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Osborn J held on an application under section 42 of the Commercial Arbitration Act 1984 that an arbitrator committed technical misconduct by resolving a liquidated damages claim through an extension of time that had not been pleaded or claimed, without giving the principal a proper opportunity to contest that course, rejected the other grounds and reserved the question of orders [1], [68], [111], [129], [143], [144], [148], [149], [150].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 14 December 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Osborn J refused the plaintiffs leave to appeal from an arbitrator's award, holding that the arbitrator was correct to follow Peninsula Balmain in treating the superintendent's reserve power to extend time as exercisable in the contractor's favour, and that the contractor was entitled to interest on an uncertified progress claim although part of it was disallowed [26], [34], [83], [92], [93].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 14 December 2006

Hearing an injunction application as the trial of the action, Kaye J in the Practice Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria held that a notice referring a dispute to a contractual Dispute Committee of the parties' own representatives, whose role was to reach agreement, did not commence the kind of proceedings the Victorian Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act requires before a respondent may give security instead of paying an adjudicated amount, so Vaughan, the payment claimant, could enforce the guarantee [1], [2], [26], [28], [29].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 29 November 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hargrave J allowed a builders' appeal from the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, holding that the warranties of fitness for purpose in their house building contract, which the builders accepted were absolute, required materials and a completed house proof against any groundwater conditions likely to be encountered at the land, so that bricks failing because of highly unusual salty groundwater did not breach those warranties [33], [37], [39], [40], [43].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 8 November 2006

After a trial on liability only, Whelan J in the Commercial List of the Supreme Court of Victoria held that purchasers of land on which a retirement village was to be built, whose stated grounds of termination failed, validly terminated because the vendor had repudiated the contract and, further, had committed serious and irremediable breaches of intermediate terms, so that no notice under condition 5 of Table A was needed [15], [465], [605].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 3 August 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Habersberger J stayed, under the Domestic Building Contracts Act, a multi-party proceeding against a developer that had itself agreed to rectify defects, holding that the purchasers' claim was a domestic building dispute and that the whole action, including later claims against added parties, arose predominantly from such a dispute [38], [39], [40], [45].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 12 April 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Whelan J held that the Domestic Building Contracts (Amendment) Act took outside the Domestic Building Contracts Act an off the plan apartment contract whose home was being built under a separate major domestic building contract and which, by making settlement conditional on completion of construction, contemplated completion before settlement, so the purchaser's deposit counterclaim failed and, his other counterclaims also failing, the vendor was entitled to specific performance [120], [131], [134], [139], [140].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 22 December 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Habersberger J allowed a builder's appeal from an order made in the Domestic Building List of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, holding that the builder was not allowed a reasonable opportunity to call evidence or to examine and cross-examine witnesses in respect of a rectification quotation, contrary to section 102(1)(a) and (b) of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998, and that there was a breach of the rules of natural justice contrary to section 98(1)(a), where the quotation raised new claims and was expert evidence (or at least evidence requiring an outline) not filed and served as directed [13], [16], [18], [20], [21].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 21 December 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Habersberger J gave a contractor summary judgment on unpaid progress certificates under a Standards Australia general conditions contract, holding that the contract allowed the principal no set-off against progress certificates except by its own certification procedure, so its cross-claims could not be raised in answer and there was no real question to be tried [4], [42], [45], [48].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 28 September 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hargrave J discharged an order for review under the Administrative Law Act of a Building Appeals Board determination, holding that a building order requiring an owner to install restraint beams along a party wall did not deprive her of vested property rights and, alternatively, that the Building Act authorised such orders even if they affect property rights, at least where the building surveyor considers there is a danger to safety [1], [35], [62], [63].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 30 June 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Warren CJ held that building owners repudiated their contract by deducting liquidated damages from a certified progress payment and by calling up the builder's bank guarantees without the contractual entitlement or notice, so that the builder validly terminated by accepting the repudiation and was entitled, subject to deductions and with orders to follow, to recover on a quantum meruit [776], [791], [802], [806], [808], [809], [906], [907].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 30 June 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Ashley J allowed a developer's appeal on a question of law from the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, set aside orders summarily striking out its application for payment into the Domestic Building Fund and compensating Mr Strangio (the third respondent) and remitted the matter, because the Tribunal's reasons did not support treating the application as liable to be struck out from its inception and did not reveal which statutory ground was relied on [2], [6], [59], [62], [63], [68], [76].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 27 June 2005

In the Practice Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Cummins J granted an interlocutory mandatory injunction compelling a contractor in administration and its administrators to deliver a short list of project information, holding on an interlocutory and not final view that the principal had a right to it under a contractual remedy clause or at least an implied term, and that the purported repudiation was not efficacious [3], [7], [21], [25], [26].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 24 June 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Balmford J held, dismissing an appeal from a Master's refusal of leave to appeal from the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to extend an insurer's time to determine a domestic building insurance claim once the period for determination had expired, whether under the Ministerial Order, the insurance dispute provision of the Domestic Building Contracts Act (there being no relevant dispute) or any inherent power [23], [26], [28], [29].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 30 May 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hollingworth J held that an order removing a caveat under the Transfer of Land Act is a final order that cannot be sought by summons alone in an existing proceeding and, treating the vendor's summons as a summary judgment application, proposed to dismiss it because there was a serious question under the Domestic Building Contracts Act and the balance of convenience did not clearly favour removal [32], [33], [38], [65], [72], [73].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 5 April 2005

The High Court, by six Justices to one, dismissed an appeal from the answer "No" given by the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Queensland to the question in a case stated. The question was whether, on the agreed facts, a subsequent owner's pleading disclosed a cause of action in negligence against the engineers who designed its commercial building's foundations. The joint reasons of Gleeson CJ, Gummow, Hayne and Heydon JJ held that, on the facts agreed and pleaded, neither respondent owed the subsequent owner a duty of care to avoid its pure economic loss. Kirby J dissented.

High Court of Australia, 1 April 2004

In 2002 the New South Wales Court of Appeal, preferring what it called the better view of the authorities, held that a superintendent under a contract on AS2124-1992 was not acting as the principal's agent, in the strict legal sense, when exercising certifying functions. On that basis it set aside a finding that the principal's non-disclosure of its project management agreement with the superintendent was misleading conduct. It also held that the superintendent's power to extend time for practical completion, even without a claim made in time, had to be exercised honestly and impartially and did not automatically end when the contract was terminated for the contractor's breach.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 3 July 2002

The High Court held, by four Justices to three, that a developer or head contractor alleged to have carried out construction work for a whole building cannot apportion its liability for breach of the duty in section 37(1) of the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (NSW) to those to whom it entrusted that work.

High Court of Australia, 11 December 2024

The High Court, by five Justices to two, allowed an appeal and answered "Yes" to a question of law reserved under the Commercial Arbitration Act 2011 (SA) (the Arbitration Act): whether Part 3 of the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence and Apportionment of Liability) Act 2001 (SA) (the Law Reform Act) and/or Part VIA of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (the CCA) apply in the parties' domestic commercial arbitration in South Australia. All three majority judgments held that the provisions of those regimes limiting a defendant's liability apply in the arbitration. Edelman and Steward JJ dissented and would have dismissed the appeal.

High Court of Australia, 7 August 2024

Refusing leave to appeal from VCAT on the apportionment grounds, the Victorian Court of Appeal held that owners' claims against the builder of the Lacrosse tower for breach of the warranties implied by the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (Vic) were not apportionable claims under the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic), because they did not arise from a failure to take reasonable care.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 26 March 2021

The New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed an owners corporation's appeal, holding that it owed licence fees for car spaces for as long as its 1999 deed with a council that owned them remained in operation, that a roller door it kept on common property after the licence ended was a nuisance, given the council's right of reasonable access to those spaces, and that its electricity cross-claim was out of time under the Limitation Act 1969 (NSW).

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 28 August 2025

The Court of Appeal of Victoria, answering questions in a special case referred by the County Court, held that section 137F(1) of the Building Act 1993 (Vic) requires a payment to a lot owner for the State to be subrogated to that lot owner's rights, and that a November 2020 payment of cladding rectification assistance to an owners corporation acting both for itself and for the lot owners is such a payment. On the agreed and assumed facts, the State was subrogated to the rights of the owners corporation and the individual lot owners.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 11 April 2025

The Court of Appeal held that, under section 134 of the Building Act 1993 (Vic), where cumulative occupancy permits are issued in stages, time for a building action runs from the first permit issued in respect of the defective building work, not from a final permit.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 8 June 2022

The New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed an owners corporation's appeal against the refusal to set aside consent orders settling a common property claim, holding under the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 (NSW) that its executive committee had authority to instruct counsel to settle and that short notice of the committee meeting did not invalidate that decision.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 21 December 2017

Allowing an appeal by objecting lot owners from the Queensland Court of Appeal, the High Court held that under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld), as it then stood, an adjudicator asked to override the failure of a motion requiring a resolution without dissent must decide whether the dissenting owners' opposition was unreasonable, not whether the body corporate's decision was reasonable, and that the opposition in this case was not.

High Court of Australia, 12 October 2016

Dismissing an appeal from VCAT on a question of law, the Supreme Court of Victoria held that a 2004 body corporate rule banning trade or business in residential lots was invalid, so far as it banned short-term letting, as beyond the rule-making power in the Subdivision (Body Corporate) Regulations 2001 (Vic), and was not saved by section 27(2C) of the Subdivision Act 1988 (Vic), registration or the transitional provisions of the Owners Corporations Act 2006 (Vic).

Supreme Court of Victoria, 22 July 2016

The New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed a developer's appeal by leave, holding that proceedings an owners corporation commenced without the general meeting approval required by section 80D of the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 (NSW) were not for that reason invalid or bound to be dismissed, Leeming JA, with whom Basten JA agreed, holding that approval must come first but that a breach engages the court's or tribunal's procedural powers to stay or dismiss, and that the breach here had been promptly cured.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 5 December 2014

The New South Wales Court of Appeal allowed an owners corporation's appeal, holding under the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 (NSW) that the duty to renew or replace common property fixtures did not require it to enlarge a working exhaust system for one lot owner, that in the alternative its special resolution not to renew or replace the system was valid and that in any event breach of section 62 gives no action for damages for breach of statutory duty.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 22 August 2013

The New South Wales Court of Appeal allowed an appeal and declared that original by-laws made under the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 (NSW), as it then stood, validly authorised a resort's owners corporation to agree to pay for lot owners and their guests to use a recreation centre about 15 minutes' walk away.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 24 June 2011

Construing section 12(2) of the Subdivision Act 1988 (Vic), the Victorian Court of Appeal held that an implied easement must be essential, in that no alternative is feasible or reasonably available, and consistent with the reasonable use and enjoyment of the burdened property, and dismissed a body corporate's appeal over implied rights of way through a penthouse, principally to the roof.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 27 June 2008

The New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed an owners corporation's appeal, holding under the Strata Schemes (Freehold Development) Act 1973 (NSW), as in force in 1989, that the plan notation fixing an uncovered terrace's height did not describe its lower boundary, so that boundary was, as was conceded, the top of tiles laid before registration and the waterproof membrane under them was common property the owners corporation had to repair under section 62(1) of the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 (NSW).

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 4 October 2007

Under section 113(1)(b) of the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 (NSW), as it stood in 1999, a caretaker agreement by which an owners corporation incurred a debt during the initial period with nothing in its funds was impliedly prohibited but not void, and the New South Wales Court of Appeal allowed the caretaker's appeal.

New South Wales Court of Appeal, 2 March 2005

The New South Wales Court of Appeal granted an owners corporation leave to appeal but dismissed the appeal, holding that the caretaker deed in issue, for a large strata complex, did not delegate the owners corporation's functions in breach of section 13(3) of the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 (NSW).

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 24 September 2003

The New South Wales Court of Appeal allowed a lot owner's appeal, in a dispute under the Strata Titles Act 1973 (NSW), from a Supreme Court judge's decision on a case stated by the Strata Titles Board, holding that the body corporate could not first argue before the judge that a wall it had conceded was common property was not, as evidence could have been called before the Board to meet the point, and remitted the matter with orders protecting the owner from its costs.

New South Wales Court of Appeal, 7 February 2003

In an oppression proceeding under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), the Victorian Court of Appeal refused leave to appeal from a trial judge's refusal to adjust a buy-out price for payments that the applicant first relied on for that purpose in closing submissions, without pleading that use.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 20 May 2026

The Victorian Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal and allowed an appeal against an order setting aside a statutory demand, holding that evidence of a unit holder's loss on the conversion of its units, without more, did not show an offsetting claim for breach of the duty under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) to treat classes of members fairly.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 9 February 2026

Allowing an appeal by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) by special leave, the High Court held that paragraph (b)(ii) of the definition of "officer" in section 9 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) does not require a person to hold or act in a recognised office, and restored the primary judge's orders against a parent company's chief executive as an officer of a group company that was a responsible entity.

High Court of Australia, 11 March 2020

The Victorian Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal but dismissed appeals from a winding up order and the dismissal of an oppression claim under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), holding that the good faith and reasonable endeavours clauses in the shareholders' deed, read against the parties' common understanding that the majority shareholder would keep its own competing business, did not stop it competing with the company, and that its competition and steps to protect its business were not oppressive.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 19 December 2018

The High Court dismissed an appeal from the Full Federal Court, holding that the Premium Income Fund's constitution, read with the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Act), did not empower its responsible entity to distribute scheme property in specie to members outside a winding up.

High Court of Australia, 5 November 2014

Allowing an appeal from the New South Wales Court of Appeal, the High Court held that under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) a responsible entity's performance of an obligation to redeem in the terms of issue of a class of units, not dependent on any act of the member, was not a withdrawal regulated by Part 5C.6.

High Court of Australia, 14 May 2014

On an appeal by special leave, a majority of the High Court held that under the Companies Act 1961 (NSW) shares that the company's articles made redeemable and gave priority as to capital over ordinary shares it could issue were redeemable preference shares even though the company never issued any ordinary shares, and the Court unanimously dismissed the appeal.

High Court of Australia, 1 May 2013

On an appeal by special leave from the New South Wales Court of Appeal, the High Court unanimously held that the power in section 1322(4)(a) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) to declare an act not invalid was available for an appointment purportedly made under the article for continuing directors by a person whose own appointment had lapsed nearly thirty years earlier, and remitted whether to make the order and to wind up the company.

High Court of Australia, 1 May 2013

On appeals remitted by the High Court, the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in fixing the penalties of seven former non-executive directors of James Hardie Industries Ltd under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) by taking the former chief executive's notional penalty as the comparator without analysing the differences between their cases, and substituted shorter disqualifications and smaller pecuniary penalties, lighter again for the two who joined the meeting by telephone, whose claim for relief from liability failed.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 12 November 2012

Allowing appeals by special leave by Fortescue Metals Group Ltd and Mr Forrest, its chairman and chief executive at the time, the High Court held that Fortescue's 2004 and 2005 statements about agreements with Chinese state-owned companies, which it had announced in 2004 as binding contracts, were not shown to be misleading or deceptive under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), so the continuous disclosure claims against Fortescue and the claim that Mr Forrest breached his duty of care and diligence as a director also failed.

High Court of Australia, 2 October 2012

On a director's appeal against declarations that he contravened section 588G of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and against his ten-year disqualification, the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that a quantum meruit liability for work done at the company's request is a "debt" for that section and dismissed the appeal with costs.

New South Wales Court of Appeal, 22 December 2009

In the Practice Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Maxwell P dismissed a creditor's appeal from a Master, setting aside a notice to produce that listed documents not referred to in the affidavits it specified, was fishing and was too wide and oppressive, and dismissing as an abuse of process a winding up application for insolvency that was bound to fail [27], [34], [44], [46].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 20 June 2007

The High Court dismissed appeals from the Full Court of the Federal Court, holding by majority that a shareholder's statutory claim against a company for non-disclosure and misleading conduct alleged to have induced his on-market purchase of its shares was provable under the company's deed of company arrangement and was not postponed under section 563A of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) as a debt owed to him as a member.

High Court of Australia, 31 January 2007

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Dodds-Streeton J dismissed an appeal from a Master's order winding up a company in insolvency, holding that a company which has not applied to set aside a statutory demand needs leave to oppose the winding up on the ground that the specified debt is not due and payable, and cannot avoid that requirement by contending that the demand is a nullity [113], [115], [173].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 15 September 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Gillard J allowed an appeal from a Master on an application to reinstate a deregistered company under section 601(AH)(2) of the Corporations Act 2001, holding that the first and third plaintiffs were aggrieved persons and that it would be just that the company's registration be reinstated [2], [111].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 11 August 2006

In a Supreme Court of Victoria trial, Mandie J said a charge Carsten Pty Ltd gave Thirteenth Corp Pty Ltd, serving only Thirteenth Corp's interests, would be set aside as contrary to the interests of Carsten's members, and that Carsten would be wound up under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).

Supreme Court of Victoria, 3 February 2006

The Supreme Court of Victoria refused a creditor's urgent application for an interlocutory injunction to stop a liquidator completing a sale of a company's winery, pending a challenge under section 600B of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ('the Act') to a creditors' resolution for winding up, finding a serious, though not particularly strong, question to be tried, a balance of convenience very strongly against the injunction and the renewal of an application already refused in New South Wales weighing heavily in the Victorian court's discretion.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 8 December 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Mandie J dismissed an application under section 237 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) by persons said to be directors and shareholders for leave to sue four banks on behalf of two companies in receivership, because he was satisfied neither that there was a serious question to be tried nor that the applicants were acting in good faith.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 2 December 2005

On a creditor's application relying on section 461(1)(k) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), the Supreme Court of Victoria held that Global Communications Technologies Pty Ltd, a deregistered company, should be reinstated and immediately wound up, because if not wound up at once it would on reinstatement have no officers, with no basis for believing that could be remedied.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 7 November 2005

In the Commercial List of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Whelan J concluded that a deed administrator to whom a chargee agreed to assign shares, in contravention of pre-emption and disposal restrictions in the company's constitution and shareholders' agreement, has an equitable proprietary interest in them, subject to deferred issues, with his relief left undetermined [76], [101], [103].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 6 October 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Dodds-Streeton J held on an originating motion that a director's letter after a board meeting had closed validly required reconsideration under the deadlock clause (sub-clause 13.1) of the Pacific National shareholders' agreement, because the clause did not require the initial meeting to be adjourned and allowed minor amendments leaving the resolution's substantive subject matter unchanged [6], [34], [104], [133], [134], [136], [137].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 3 October 2005

Dismissing, save on the procedure for fixing penalty, an appeal against civil penalty declarations, disqualification orders and penalties for contraventions of sections 232 and 243ZE of the Corporations Law, the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that the proceedings, begun under that Law, were validly continued under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth); that a non-director was an officer because he was concerned in the company's management; that the finding of a failure to act honestly stood even on a subjective test; and that the shareholders' post-judgment ratification was ineffective, in part because shareholders could not ratify contraventions of civil penalty provisions, but it remitted the matter for a separate hearing on penalty.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 7 December 2004

Allowing a company president's appeal in civil penalty proceedings by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that, even on ASIC's case that he deliberately left a proxy poll paper unsigned, he voted as chair under section 250A of the Corporations Law because the paper showed an intention to vote that was given effect when the votes were counted; that no breach of section 232 could be found, under section 232(6) because a purpose of personal advantage was not open on the evidence and under section 232(2) because the case as pleaded and conducted gave no basis for treating his handling of the proxies as a director's duty; and that a want of care finding under section 180(1) about draft board minutes could not stand, so the proceedings were dismissed.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 10 July 2003

On appeals from the Full Court of the Federal Court, the High Court unanimously allowed the appeals, holding that section 730 of the Corporations Law empowered the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to modify the takeover provisions so that a successful bidder could compulsorily acquire shares issued on the exercise of options after the offer period.

High Court of Australia, 10 February 2000

A majority of the High Court held that where the arbitration agreement and the UNCITRAL Rules make an interim award final and binding, a later award that revisits an issue the interim award decided is made beyond the tribunal's authority and may be set aside under section 34(2)(a)(iii) of the Commercial Arbitration Act 2012 (WA), the court deciding that question de novo.

High Court of Australia, 14 August 2024

The High Court, by five Justices to two, allowed an appeal and answered "Yes" to a question of law reserved under the Commercial Arbitration Act 2011 (SA) (the Arbitration Act): whether Part 3 of the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence and Apportionment of Liability) Act 2001 (SA) (the Law Reform Act) and/or Part VIA of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (the CCA) apply in the parties' domestic commercial arbitration in South Australia. All three majority judgments held that the provisions of those regimes limiting a defendant's liability apply in the arbitration. Edelman and Steward JJ dissented and would have dismissed the appeal.

High Court of Australia, 7 August 2024

On appeals from the Full Court of the Federal Court, the High Court held that the arbitral clauses in a family's deeds of settlement, read in their context, covered claims that misconduct had procured them, and by majority that alleged knowing recipients of mining tenements from parties to one deed, whose defence rested as an essential element on those parties' beneficial title, could have claims against them stayed under section 8(1) of the Commercial Arbitration Act 2010 (NSW).

High Court of Australia, 8 May 2019

The Victorian Court of Appeal refused leave to appeal from orders enforcing a Singapore-seated award under the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth), holding that an award declaring agreements relating to the purchase of shares rescinded and ordering repayment of the price, without an express order returning the shares, restored the parties to their previous positions, so its enforcement was not contrary to public policy.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 9 February 2016

The Victorian Court of Appeal allowed an appeal by an Australian company from orders enforcing against it, under the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth), a Mongolian arbitral award made under an arbitration agreement that did not name it, the judges agreeing that the award creditor had to show, at least on a prima facie basis, that the company was a party, but differing on the nature of that onus.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 22 August 2011

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Osborn J held on an application under section 42 of the Commercial Arbitration Act 1984 that an arbitrator committed technical misconduct by resolving a liquidated damages claim through an extension of time that had not been pleaded or claimed, without giving the principal a proper opportunity to contest that course, rejected the other grounds and reserved the question of orders [1], [68], [111], [129], [143], [144], [148], [149], [150].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 14 December 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Osborn J refused the plaintiffs leave to appeal from an arbitrator's award, holding that the arbitrator was correct to follow Peninsula Balmain in treating the superintendent's reserve power to extend time as exercisable in the contractor's favour, and that the contractor was entitled to interest on an uncertified progress claim although part of it was disallowed [26], [34], [83], [92], [93].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 14 December 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hollingworth J held that service of a writ on a Philippine company outside Australia should be set aside because the indorsement required by rule 7.02 identified the paragraphs of rule 7.01 relied on but stated no supporting facts, a defect not cured by a statement of claim served afterwards, and declined to dispense with the requirement [46], [48], [53].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 4 December 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Whelan J refused to stay a proceeding in favour of arbitration under the International Arbitration Act, holding under section 7(5) that the arbitration agreement was inoperative because the defendant's application for security for costs involved an unequivocal choice to pursue litigation, so that it had waived its right to insist on arbitration [30].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 31 August 2005

The Victorian Court of Appeal held that, on the expert determination deed before it, an expert asked to determine whether a landlord had achieved practical completion "in accordance with clause 9" of an agreement for lease had to decide whether practical completion was in fact achieved, and could not stop at whether the architect's certificate had been properly issued; because the expert answered the wrong question, his determination did not bind the parties.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 3 December 2025

The High Court, by four Justices to one, dismissed appeals by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (the ACCC) in a secondary boycott case under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth). Gageler CJ, Gleeson and Beech-Jones JJ held that a person who gives in to a threat of industrial action by doing what is demanded, without communicating to the person making the threat, expressly or tacitly, a commitment to do so, has not thereby arrived at an understanding with the person making the threat for the purposes of sections 45E(3) and 45EA. Edelman J agreed in the result because the head contractor, J Hutchinson Pty Ltd (Hutchinson), communicated no assent to the union and the ACCC ran no case that the union had dispensed with the need for it. Steward J dissented.

High Court of Australia, 2 April 2025

The Victorian Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal and set aside a non-party costs order against a builder's director, holding that he was not a "real party" to the builder's contribution claim against a co-defendant architect.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 28 February 2025

The High Court unanimously dismissed an appeal about whether process of a State court could validly be served in New Zealand under the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act 2010 (Cth) (the TTPA). In joint reasons, Kiefel CJ, Gageler, Gleeson and Jagot JJ held that sections 9 and 10 of the TTPA validly apply to an initiating document issued by a State court in a civil proceeding, whether the proceeding is in State or federal jurisdiction [6], [38]. Gordon, Edelman and Steward JJ agreed that the appeal should be dismissed and gave separate reasons.

High Court of Australia, 8 August 2023

The prevention principle applies only through a breach of the contract, not as a free-standing rule, and the implied duty to cooperate can be breached by conduct that hinders without making performance impossible; but on the facts a letter asserting a wrong construction of the contract was not a breach of that duty, and did not prevent the other party meeting a time condition.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Victoria, 24 March 2021

In March 2017 the New South Wales Court of Appeal dismissed a builder's appeal from a judgment for $11,612,013.53 for defective concrete pavements at a container terminal at Port Botany. Bathurst CJ, with whom Beazley P and Gleeson JA agreed, held that a deed assigning to a later lessee all the benefit of the builder's warranties passed the right to sue for breaches that had already occurred. The assignee's knowledge of cracking when it acquired the terminal did not mean it suffered no loss. It could recover the cost of replacing the pavement, apart from areas under the warehouse awnings, without any allowance for betterment. The order for indemnity costs at trial was also upheld.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 1 March 2017

Granting leave to appeal but dismissing the appeal, the New South Wales Court of Appeal held that, read as a whole, clause 42.10 of a building contract kept an expert's determination in effect unless and until changed under the clause 42.11 negotiation procedure, so it remained binding once that procedure was, as was not disputed, exhausted without resolving the dispute or agreeing a procedure.

Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of New South Wales, 27 May 2011

On an appeal from a magistrate under section 109 of the Magistrates' Court Act 1989 (Vic), the Supreme Court of Victoria (Bell J) held the magistrate did not err in law in dismissing a landlord's claim under the Fair Trading Act 1985 (Vic): she correctly characterised the tenant's brother's assurance as one of best endeavours that did not mislead or deceive; though she erred in not applying section 10A of that Act in her primary analysis, she correctly held in the alternative that reasonable grounds were shown; the appeal was dismissed with costs.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 10 October 2007

In the Admiralty List of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Byrne J held that a lump sum transport contract was not converted into a contract to reimburse the contractor's subcontract costs, whether by construction, implied term, later agreement or estoppel by convention, so that any price adjustment still in dispute depended on the contract's terms, notably its variation clause [14], [18], [54], [61].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 6 July 2007

In the Commercial and Equity Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hansen J granted an interlocutory injunction restraining a head contractor from relying on its notice terminating a defence procurement subcontract for convenience, finding that the lower risk of injustice favoured an injunction on undertakings as to damages where a serious question was conceded as to whether an implied term of good faith and fair dealing qualified the power and was breached [49], [72], [101].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 15 June 2007

In the Commercial List of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hargrave J gave judgment for an airline under a frequent flyer participation agreement, holding that the agreement contained no express or implied term obliging the airline to keep its program running, that the card issuer's payment obligation arose on the crediting of points and that their later worthlessness was no total failure of consideration [54], [107], [133], [183], [239], [242].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 30 April 2007

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hargrave J held that a mediated term of settlement requiring an owner to pay unpaid amounts due under payment certificates obliged it to pay the sum it had deducted from a certificate for liquidated damages, because the settlement released that claim and payments under the certificates were on account [24], [25], [27], [29], [30].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 15 February 2007

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hollingworth J held that service of a writ on a Philippine company outside Australia should be set aside because the indorsement required by rule 7.02 identified the paragraphs of rule 7.01 relied on but stated no supporting facts, a defect not cured by a statement of claim served afterwards, and declined to dispense with the requirement [46], [48], [53].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 4 December 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, at a trial confined to liability, Whelan J held that a vendor's written income and return estimates for ski lodge suites were misleading and deceptive in contravention of the Trade Practices Act, because they did not bear a reasonable relationship as estimates to actual historic performance [8], [92], [110].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 10 October 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, at a separate trial of liability, Gillard J held that a train operator proved that a track buckle, not a dislodged brake beam, caused a derailment, so that the network manager was liable to it in contract and under an indemnity clause that applied between the parties as well as in negligence, its liability extending to its maintenance contractor under a non-delegable duty, and that the manager's counterclaim must be dismissed [1], [140], [280], [287], [288], [291], [292].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 27 September 2006

In the Commercial List of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hargrave J held that a buyer of a racing car under a contract subject to finance, which fixed no time for paying the instalment to be financed, was not excused from completing because he stopped seeking finance well before a reasonable time expired and did not prove that further efforts would have been useless [86], [94], [112], [115], [119].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 18 September 2006

In the Commercial List of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hargrave J held that the pre-emptive rights clause in a mining joint venture agreement, triggered when a venturer ceased to be a subsidiary of another corporation, was not confined to its immediate holding company but reached a company further up the corporate tree linked by a chain of majority or 100 per cent shareholdings [46].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 8 September 2006

In the Common Law Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Bell J dismissed an appeal on a question of law from a magistrate, holding the Fair Trading Act's deeming provision for company officers did not extend to civil proceedings, but that the orders against an officer of the companies stood because he was directly liable for conduct in his employer's trade or commerce as more than a mere conduit [189], [190].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 4 August 2006

After a trial on liability only, Whelan J in the Commercial List of the Supreme Court of Victoria held that purchasers of land on which a retirement village was to be built, whose stated grounds of termination failed, validly terminated because the vendor had repudiated the contract and, further, had committed serious and irremediable breaches of intermediate terms, so that no notice under condition 5 of Table A was needed [15], [465], [605].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 3 August 2006

In the Commercial and Equity Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Whelan J held, following Equuscorp, that a related financier which settled a film investment loan with a counter cheque endorsed back to it the same day had still made the loan, and was unable to conclude that the loan agreements were a sham, so the borrower's and guarantor's defences failed [66], [79], [80], [81].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 3 August 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Byrne J held that a company which bought a business's plant, including conveyor chains that were defective when supplied but whose defects appeared after the sale, could recover its own losses from the supplier as assignee of the vendor's contract claim, because the vendor's right of action arose on delivery and passed under a later deed of assignment, it not being suggested that the purchaser's losses were greater than the vendor's would have been [90], [95], [97].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 28 July 2006

In the Commercial and Equity Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Dodds-Streeton J held after a trial that a franchisee's claims against its franchisor's termination of the franchise should be dismissed, finding no breach of an implied term of good faith on any articulation of it and leaving undecided whether such a term was implied [214], [222], [223].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 21 June 2006

The Supreme Court of Victoria (Hargrave J) found serious questions to be tried on a tenant's claim to hold a purchaser of its leased premises to a restraint of trade clause, but the tenant's interlocutory injunction application failed on the balance of convenience.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 24 May 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Mandie J allowed an appeal, by leave, on questions of law under section 148 of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998 from VCAT orders in two small claims under Part 9 of the Fair Trading Act 1999, holding that VCAT's oral reasons, given where no written reasons were requested, were inadequate and that this constituted or showed an error of law [1], [8], [38], [41], [42], [43].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 10 May 2006

Ruling on an application under the Jurisdiction of Courts (Cross-vesting) Act 1987 (Vic) to transfer a contract proceeding, Hollingworth J of Victoria's Supreme Court found the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) "clearly the more appropriate jurisdiction" and proposed to order the proceeding's transfer to the ACT's Supreme Court.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 23 March 2006

In the Common Law Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Dodds-Streeton J dismissed a former dealer's claim that statements in a comic skit at a dealers' conference, announcing that ex-rental copiers could be bought for $1, were a unilateral contractual offer, holding on the case pleaded that they lacked the requisite certainty and specified no act as consideration [182], [183], [184], [193].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 16 February 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Bongiorno J found that a magistrate who considered he had no power to order discovery of particular categories of documents fell into jurisdictional error, but refused judicial review in his discretion because, as the pleadings stood, the application could properly have been dismissed on its merits [5], [8], [11], [12], [13].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 19 January 2006

In the Commercial and Equity Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Whelan J held that a buyer's separately tried counterclaim to rectify a business sale agreement for unilateral mistake must fail, because its negotiator understood what the clause provided and misjudged its financial consequences, so there was no relevant mistake [3], [4], [52], [53], [69].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 26 October 2005

In the Commercial and Equity Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Dodds-Streeton J, deciding the case finally on the balance of probabilities after the defendant elected to call no evidence, held that an Investment Agreement, read with a signed document agreeing to its principal terms, was a contract binding at once although fuller documents were to follow, under which the defendant was jointly and severally liable to repay the investment sum on the repayment date [100], [105], [107], [126], [129].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 31 August 2005

In the Common Law Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Gillard J held that a covenant on the sale of an accountancy practice that the vendors would not at any time act for clients of the preceding three years was valid although it had no time limit, and that the vendors, having affirmed the agreement after the purchaser's breach of an essential term, remained bound by it [79], [99], [101], [124].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 30 June 2005

In the Commercial and Equity Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Dodds-Streeton J held that a third party's offer, solicited by a customer bound by a requirements supply agreement and extended in return for monthly payments by the customer representing estimated damages for its repudiation of an earlier contract with the offeror, was not an arm's length offer within the supplier's right to match clause, although the offered bottles were substantially the same as the contract products and want of good faith was not established [168], [200], [239], [244], [245].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 9 June 2005

In an interlocutory ruling, the Supreme Court of Victoria held that the balance of convenience favoured continuing an injunction until trial against a supplier seeking to end a distributorship for a missed turnover target, leaving orders to be settled.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 13 May 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Kaye J refused a club an interlocutory injunction restraining Tattersalls from removing provisional gaming machines, holding that because the injunction would in effect give final relief on disputed affidavit evidence, the club needed a strong case or a balance of convenience strongly in its favour, and it had neither [20], [31], [49].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 22 February 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, on a trial of a bank's claims and of liability on the counterclaim, Byrne J held that the bank validly cancelled an overdraft under an express discretionary right, which was not displaced by rectification, implied terms or estoppel [9], [38], [40], [45], [46], [89]. Accepting that the discretion had to be exercised reasonably and in good faith, his Honour found the cancellation not vitiated, because the bank could have regard to its own legitimate commercial interests [47], [96], [99].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 8 June 2001

In the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, on cross notices of motion to adopt a referee's report and for declarations, Austin J construed the rent review clause in a 50-year lease as not permitting the valuer to conclude that there was no market for the hypothetical lease, although the valuer may take into account that no other bidders would be likely [18], [35], [36], [46].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 14 March 2001

In the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Einstein J refused the defendant's application to stay proceedings pending a contractual dispute resolution procedure, holding that the mediation clause was unenforceable because it did not say how the mediator's costs were to be borne, and that the negotiation clause, not being severable from it, was also unenforceable [2], [70], [71], [174], [175].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 1 October 1999

In the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Young J dismissed a firm of solicitors' suit for specific performance of an alleged settlement, holding that oral and written exchanges between solicitors, which at most agreed the principal terms of a settlement including a deed of release, did not settle the proceedings, because the parties intended no contract until the release was delivered and exchanged and the notice of discontinuance at least signed [39], [40], [43].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 5 March 1999

On questions reserved for the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria and removed into the High Court, the High Court unanimously held that a group costs order under section 33ZDA of the Supreme Court Act 1986 (Vic) would not survive transfer to the Supreme Court of New South Wales under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), and a majority held that the order was relevant to transfer under section 1337H(2) and here weighed decisively against it, so that the proceeding should not be transferred.

High Court of Australia, 12 March 2025

On an appeal by special leave, the High Court held that damages under section 272(1)(a) of the Australian Consumer Law, Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), for a reduction in the value of goods are assessed at the time of supply, with later-acquired knowledge of the defect and any repair attributed to a reasonable consumer at that time but without any adjustment to avoid over-compensation, and it allowed the appeal and remitted the appellant's damages to the primary judge.

High Court of Australia, 6 November 2024

On appeals by special leave in a representative proceeding, the High Court held that the amount of damages under section 272(1)(a) of the Australian Consumer Law, Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), for a reduction in the value of goods is fixed as at supply, attributing to a reasonable consumer what was known by trial about the defect and any repair; it allowed the lead applicants' appeal and dismissed the manufacturer's appeal and, by majority, remitted damages to the primary judge.

High Court of Australia, 6 November 2024

On appeal from the Supreme Court of New South Wales, the High Court dismissed the appeal, a majority holding that the stay power in section 67 of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW) is not confined by a first-in-time rule or presumption, and that where several firms of solicitors with different funding models run competing open class proceedings and the defendant's interests are not differentially affected, the court hearing the stay applications decides, by reference to all relevant considerations, which proceeding going ahead best serves group members, a stay being only one way to deal with multiplicity.

High Court of Australia, 10 March 2021

On appeals from the Full Court of the Federal Court and the New South Wales Court of Appeal, a majority of the High Court held that neither section 33ZF of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth) nor section 183 of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW) empowers a court to make a common fund order, and allowed both appeals.

High Court of Australia, 4 December 2019

Allowing wholesalers' appeals by special leave, the High Court held by majority that opt-in representative proceedings under Part 8 rule 13 of the Supreme Court Rules 1970 (NSW) did not meet that rule's requirements; five Justices also concluded, in reasons not necessary to the orders, that the litigation funding was not a ground to stay the proceedings as an abuse of process or as contrary to public policy.

High Court of Australia, 30 August 2006

On applications for leave to appeal from interlocutory orders in a Part IVA representative proceeding under the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth), the Full Court of the Federal Court dismissed the Australian respondents’ appeals on section 33C, although Branson J and Finkelstein J held that the proceeding as framed did not satisfy section 33C and would allow it to be amended, and the judges divided on whether every group member must have a claim against every respondent.

Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia, 15 July 2003

On demurrers in its original jurisdiction, the High Court by majority rejected territorial and section 73 challenges to Part 4A of the Supreme Court Act 1986 (Vic), the group proceeding regime inserted in 2000, did not read it down and allowed each demurrer with costs.

High Court of Australia, 26 June 2002

On a former administrator's application under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), the Supreme Court of Victoria fixed his remuneration, less disallowed items and a ten per cent reduction, allowed his legal fees to 30 June 2008 and sent later fees to taxation, over objections.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 18 December 2008

On the deed administrators' application, the Supreme Court of Victoria terminated two companies' deed of company arrangement on conditions under section 447A of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and wound them up.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 14 April 2008

In a claim by liquidators and the company under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) against the Commissioner of Taxation to recover alleged preferential payments, Robson J ruled mid-hearing that he would not enter judgment on the Commissioner's consent while one third party, a former director, kept a defence under rule 11.09(2) of the Supreme Court (General Civil Procedure) Rules 2005 (Vic) denying the company's alleged insolvency, but would if that director withdrew it, and held that the two who had delivered and then withdrawn the defence were taken to admit the allegations of paragraph 6 of the statement of claim that it had denied.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 11 March 2008

On an appeal from a Master's order setting aside KPMG's statutory demand under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), the Supreme Court of Victoria (Robson J) held that the supporting affidavit complied with section 459G and that there was a genuine dispute and/or an offsetting claim under section 459H, and dismissed the appeal.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 19 September 2007

In the Practice Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Maxwell P dismissed a creditor's appeal from a Master, setting aside a notice to produce that listed documents not referred to in the affidavits it specified, was fishing and was too wide and oppressive, and dismissing as an abuse of process a winding up application for insolvency that was bound to fail [27], [34], [44], [46].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 20 June 2007

On an inquiry sought by ASIC into an official liquidator's conduct, Dodds-Streeton J of the Supreme Court of Victoria held that he should be removed from his offices and prohibited for ten years from acting as a liquidator, administrator or receiver and that remuneration drawn without valid approval should be paid into Court for a Master to determine his entitlement [639], [623], [628].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 25 May 2007

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Dodds-Streeton J dismissed an appeal from a Master's order winding up a company in insolvency, holding that a company which has not applied to set aside a statutory demand needs leave to oppose the winding up on the ground that the specified debt is not due and payable, and cannot avoid that requirement by contending that the demand is a nullity [113], [115], [173].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 15 September 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Gillard J allowed an appeal from a Master on an application to reinstate a deregistered company under section 601(AH)(2) of the Corporations Act 2001, holding that the first and third plaintiffs were aggrieved persons and that it would be just that the company's registration be reinstated [2], [111].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 11 August 2006

In a ruling on an appeal from a Master's refusal to set aside a statutory demand under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), the Supreme Court of Victoria (Whelan J) dismissed the appeal on a preliminary point, before any hearing of its merits, together with an interlocutory process for an extension nunc pro tunc of the time for compliance, which had expired before the appeal came on for hearing.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 28 July 2006

At trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria, Mandie J dismissed claims under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) that two land sales were uncommercial transactions, holding that for the purposes of section 588FB each sale formed part of one transaction with a third interdependent sale at an overall price above value.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 3 February 2006

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, on a liquidator's interlocutory application, Whelan J directed him under section 479(3) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) that he may properly sell items listed in an exhibit to his affidavit as part of the sale of SpectruCell technology and its related hardware and software, retaining the proceeds until further order, and under section 530C authorised disposal of such seized property and books as fell within that direction, without finally determining ownership.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 21 November 2005

In the Commercial and Equity Division of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Hollingworth J held that, where a factory was bought in a company officer's name with the company paying most of the purchase moneys, an unrebutted presumption of resulting trust arose for both in the shares they contributed, and proposed a declaration over the net sale proceeds accordingly, although neither side had argued for that result [3], [11], [91], [92], [93].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 15 June 2005

In an urgent ruling given the day after a liquidator applied under section 511 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), the Supreme Court of Victoria made no order authorising a company's officers to run its litigation: Hansen J was of the view that he lacked sufficient information on the overall interest of the company, its creditors and members; nor had he a proposal protecting the company on costs orders a settlement would release, or any assurance beyond Mr Spalla's on ongoing costs.

Supreme Court of Victoria, 6 May 2005

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Byrne J dismissed a subcontractor's appeal and refused it leave to proceed against a head contractor bound by a deed of company arrangement, where the subcontractor sought judgment on an adjudicated amount under the Victorian security of payment legislation only to recover that amount from the principal [7], [17], [18], [19].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 18 February 2005

In a civil penalty proceeding brought by ASIC in the Supreme Court of Victoria, Mandie J held that the managing director and a non-executive director of two insolvent companies each contravened section 588G of the Corporations Law on each occasion a debt was incurred, and that neither established a defence under section 588H [569]. The law applied was the Corporations Law (Vic) in force from 14 September 1999 to 17 February 2000 [316]. Under the transitional provisions, Parts 5.7B and 9.4B as operative before 13 March 2000 governed the proceeding [336]. The judgment determined contravention, leaving for further hearing whether to relieve the directors wholly or partly from liability under section 1317JA(2) [570]. Whether to order compensation under section 588J(1) was also left open [571]. Also left for further hearing were declarations, disqualification and penalties, costs and the position of Harrison [572], [573], [574].

Supreme Court of Victoria, 5 May 2003

In the Equity Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Austin J dismissed a receiver's originating process against liquidators, holding that his powers of possession under the Corporations Act and the deed of charge were restricted to books the companies in receivership owned, or possibly had a proprietary interest in, that were charged property [53], [54], [56], [57], [87]. His Honour also held that books those companies merely possessed were not books "of" the corporation open to the receiver's inspection under section 431 [76], [77].

Supreme Court of New South Wales, 14 September 2001