Business Law Library & Tracker
Selected Business Law Cases
Short explainers for court decisions that change how Australian businesses handle contracts, staff, customers, IP and company duties.
Sources last reviewed 9 Nov 2026
Main law guides
297
Acts, regulations and codes worth reading first
Topics
22
Plain-English clusters
Published case explainers
519
Selected cases with a business lesson
Tracked updates
137
New, amended & reviewed
Plain-English explainers, not legal advice. Use the linked official source for section-level detail, and get advice for your situation.
Get legal helpAstraZeneca AB v Pharmacor Pty Ltd (No 2)
If your business needs to change its case late in litigation, be careful about how the explanation is framed. A statement that the company and its lawyers only...
AstraZeneca AB v Pharmacor Pty Ltd (No 3)
If your business is in a patent dispute, treat pleadings as part of your commercial strategy, not just court paperwork. This case draws a practical line between...
Aulich v Scott
A rights issue or pro-rata offer is not automatically fair. Directors should be able to explain why the company needs capital, how the amount and issue price were...
AUSTRAC v Princeton Securities
AML/CTF reporting duties are not optional housekeeping. If a reporting entity stays enrolled and does not tell AUSTRAC it has ceased providing designated services,...
Australian Agrivision Pty Ltd v Wolstenholme (Vacate Trial)
The safest reading of this case is that commercial parties should prepare for the listed hearing in the court they are actually in, rather than assuming related...
Australian Agrivision v Wolstenholme
Personal guarantees and urgent bridging finance can create brutal exposure. Directors, founders and property operators should not sign guarantees unless they...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v eHarmony, Inc
The Court assessed the overall impression created across eHarmony's sales journey, not each screen in isolation. On these facts, later or less prominent disclosure...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v RSA Express Pty Ltd
Advertising cannot be assessed separately from checkout and fulfilment. If a headline promise depends on further assessments, bookings, payments or waiting periods,...
Australian Fulin Agriculture derivative action
A shareholder cannot always force the company to sue just because there may be a claim. Derivative-action applications turn on good faith, serious question, costs...
Australian LinkedIn v Registrar of Trade Marks
A company usually cannot run Federal Court proceedings through a director or shareholder just because paying lawyers is inconvenient. Trade mark appeals and IP...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v BSF Solutions Pty Ltd (Evidence Rulings)
If your business is defending a regulator case in the Federal Court, do not assume a concise statement works like a tightly confined pleading. The Court said the...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Insurance Australia Limited
If your business needs a sensitive report after a regulator query, pricing concern, compliance issue or possible breach, involve lawyers early and define the legal...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Keystone Asset Management Ltd (receivers and managers appointed) (in liquidation) (No 4)
If your business receives, holds or transfers investor money, trust money or project funds, keep a clean documentary trail showing whose money it was, why it moved...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Latitude Finance Australia (No 4)
A headline offer can mislead through omission even if the omitted terms appear elsewhere. When a payment promotion depends on a new credit account, card or...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Marco (No 21)
If your business is involved in court proceedings, treat filed documents as strategically important assets and risks. A later-appointed liquidator, receiver or...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v NGS Crypto Pty Ltd (No 6)
Read this case as a procedural warning. If ASIC obtains substantive relief against your company, or if you bring an interlocutory application and lose, a separate...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Noumi Limited (No 7)
A senior executive cannot treat financial reporting as a finance-team problem when operational facts show that inventory may be unsaleable or revenue conditions...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Palmer
Read this case as a warning against treating pleadings as a technical afterthought. If your business is bringing or defending a serious claim that depends on...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Web3 Ventures Pty Ltd
A product does not avoid financial-services regulation merely because its customer journey is described as crypto conversion, lending or technology. If customers...
Australian Strategic Materials scheme
A scheme of arrangement is a controlled court-supervised path for a major acquisition, not just a shareholder vote. Companies planning an exit need a clean scheme...
Australian Workers' Union v Chevron Australia Pty Ltd
When pay is reduced for an absence or work stoppage, the payment's name and pay cycle are not enough. The safer analysis starts with what the employee must do to...
Baillie Wines v Camden Council
Agritourism and farm-gate concepts are not magic labels. If a business wants planning approval for food, drink, accommodation or events on rural land, the proposed...
Bilal v Ampol Australia Petroleum
Employment litigation often becomes a document fight before it becomes a witness fight. Employers should preserve records early, use clear discovery searches,...
Birch, in the matter of Vitrinite
When a business group collapses, creditors need more than a headline answer. Administrators must work out employee entitlements, secured creditor positions, asset...
Black Star Pastry v Richards
Brand ownership should be sorted before registration, licensing or expansion. If two people own a mark together, one person registering it alone can make the...
Bodum v H.A.G Import
Copying the look of a competitor's product is risky, but the law still asks what consumers are likely to understand. Packaging, labelling, brand names and the...
Bolton v Keybridge Capital
Derivative actions are not a shortcut for restarting a control fight. A shareholder, former director or founder who wants to sue in the company's name needs...
Bonney v Watarra Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC (No 3)
If a dispute is really about a regulator accepting registration documents, the legal focus may need to be on the regulator’s decision rather than the corporation...
Bredenkamp, in the matter of Ultima United
Company directors cannot assume being overseas puts insolvency examinations out of reach. Liquidators can seek overseas service and substituted service orders,...
Britten v eBroker.com.au Pty Ltd
Read this case as a warning about litigation conduct. The Court's focus was not on who was right about the underlying finance dispute. It was on whether the...
Brydi v Southern Cross Payments
Investor claims can proceed even where regulators have already litigated related facts. Companies, auditors and founders should assume financial reports, audit...
Bunter v Hardy, in the matter of FT Sydney
Commercial confidentiality in litigation needs evidence, precision and a real link to the administration of justice. A party cannot simply point to a confidential...
Butler v Total Tools Holdings Pty Ltd
If an incentive is meant to be earned and payable, document an actual entitlement. A resolution that authorises a board, especially at a time of the board's...
Campbell v McIntyre
Online disputes can become urgent ACL and reputation litigation. If a commercial dispute spills into videos, articles, WhatsApp groups or investor communications,...
Cannatrek scheme approval
Shareholder votes do not erase late disclosure issues. If a regulated risk changes during a transaction, boards should update the market, tell members clearly and...
Capic v Ford
Consumer guarantee exposure can travel beyond the first sale, but the chain of title and the type of resale matter. Businesses selling products through dealers,...