Roads and Maritime Services v Desane Properties Pty Ltd [2018] NSWCA 196
Public law: compulsory acquisition of property, improper purpose
The Court of Appeal has found that a Proposed Acquisition Notice issued to compulsorily acquire the respondent’s property for the NSW Government’s WestConnex project was not invalid for failure to comply with the Approved Form under the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act 1991 (NSW) and was not actuated by an improper purpose.
The Court of Appeal has found no basis upon which to restrain a major law firm from acting for the appellant, in circumstances where partners who had previously acted for the other side in an arbitration had moved to the appellant’s firm.
Class actions: competing actions; limitation periods; federal jurisdiction
The Full Court of the Federal Court has transferred four representative proceedings against AMP Limited to the Supreme Court of New South Wales, pursuant to the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), s 1337H, and considered the impact of such a transfer on the suspension of limitation period provisions in the Commonwealth and New South Wales class action legislation.
Corporations: Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), s 597; discretionary trusts
The Full Court of the Federal Court has held that there was no basis to extend the scope of ‘examinable affairs’ under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), s 597(9) to include the financial documents of a trust, where the examinee has no proprietary interest in the trust assets but the liquidator contends those assets might be available to satisfy a prospective judgment debt.
The Victorian Court of Appeal has held that a County Court judge did not deny a self-represented litigant a fair hearing and there was no basis for concluding that the judge had shown ostensible bias.
The New Zealand Court of Appeal has found the tourist activity shark cage diving to be an offence under the Wildlife Act 1953 (NZ), s 63A, and that such an activity could not fall within the scope of s 53(1), which purported to authorise certain conduct that would otherwise be an offence under the Act.
PT Bayan Resources TBK v BCBC Singapore Pte Ltd [2018] SGCA(I) 6
Contract: breach, damages; evidence: onus of proof
The Singapore Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal brought by the appellant companies against a finding that they had repudiated a joint venture agreement with companies which were indirect wholly owned subsidiaries of a listed Australian company.
In the matter of an application by Siobhan McLaughlin for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) [2018] UKSC 48
Human rights: European Convention on Human Rights; social security
The United Kingdom Supreme Court has made a declaration of incompatibility under the European Convention on Human Rights, in relation to a social security scheme in which a widowed parent could only claim a particular benefit if they were married to or in a civil partnership with the deceased with whom they had children.
Constitutional law; human rights; Indian penal code
The Supreme Court of India has held s 377 of the Indian Penal Code to be invalid insofar as it criminalised consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex, overturning a previous decision from the Supreme Court which had upheld the constitutional validity of that section.
