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 helpArrotex Pharmaceuticals Pty Limited v Minister for Health and Aged Care
If your business depends on a statutory formula, do not assume a previous regulatory event blocks a later one unless the legislation clearly says so. Build a...
Austin Engineering Ltd v Podulova (No 4)
If your business is considering urgent court action after a former employee takes or keeps company files, build your evidence in layers. First, prove what happened:...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Beacon Products Pty Limited (in liq)
Read this case as a warning about systems, records and tone. If your business uses outbound calls, follow-up pressure, repeat ordering or recurring supply, you need...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Bupa HI Pty Ltd
A business cannot safely turn a partial entitlement into a blanket no. If a customer is entitled to something, even if only part of a claim, service or benefit is...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Clorox Australia Pty Limited
Business owners should read this case as a warning about headline green claims. The Court accepted that the dominant front-of-pack wording mattered most. Here,...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Emma Sleep GmbH
Businesses should read this case as a warning to check both the substance of their promotions and the reality of their operating model. If you advertise savings,...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Emma Sleep GmbH (Non-publication)
If your business is in Federal Court, assume that documents on the court file may later be inspected by non-parties unless there is a strong legal basis to restrict...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Fewstone Pty Ltd (Penalty)
The clearest lesson from this case is that a retailer cannot assume a supplier or manufacturer has taken care of compliance. If your business supplies products that...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Mastercard Asia/Pacific Pte Ltd (No 2)
If your business is dealing with the ACCC or another regulator, do not treat privilege review as a box-ticking exercise. This case shows that courts may protect...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Mastercard Asia/Pacific Pte Ltd (No 3)
If your business is in a dispute, do not treat privilege as something that is protected automatically once lawyers are involved. This case shows that the real risk...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly Facebook, Inc.) (No 4)
The practical takeaway is to read this as a pleading decision, not a liability ruling. The Court was deciding whether the ACCC had pleaded an arguable case, not...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Optus Mobile Pty Limited
If your business sells to consumers, this case is a practical warning to review the whole sales pathway, not just scripts and disclosures. You need to know whether...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Qteq Pty Ltd
Business owners should read this case as a warning about competitor contact. The legal risk point is not limited to a completed cartel agreement. If your team...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Telstra Limited (No 2)
If your business changes what customers receive, whether by moving them to a different tier, altering features, changing service levels or reframing the value of a...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Webjet Marketing Pty Ltd
Business owners should treat this case as a systems and messaging case, not just an advertising case. The Court accepted that the relevant question was the...
Australian Property Scout Holdings Pty Ltd v Titus (No 2)
For business owners, the case is a reminder that urgent injunctions are won on precision, evidence and drafting. If you want immediate protection, it helps to...
Australian Retirement Trust Pty Ltd ATF Australian Retirement Trust v Buckland
Read this case as a contract administration warning. Start with the exact words that fix the trigger. Here, the decisive wording referred to the date on which a...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (Retail Cases Omnibus)
The commercial lesson from this case is that customer promises, compliance obligations and operational controls have to line up. ANZ’s admitted conduct was spread...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (Treasury Bonds Case)
Business owners should read this as a case about conduct matching representations. ANZ had represented that it would be transparent with the AOFM, yet the court...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v BPS Financial Pty Ltd
If your business is launching a payment or wallet product under someone else's AFSL, do not assume the structure works just because there is an authorised...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Darranda Pty Ltd (Penalty)
The main lesson is to test the legal substance of your customer arrangement, not just its label. If a customer gets goods now and pays over time, your document may...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Green County Pty Ltd (Penalty)
If your business provides consumer loans, vendor finance or credit assistance, this case is a strong reminder to check the legal character of what you are doing...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v HCF Life Insurance Company Pty Limited (Penalty)
For businesses, the main lesson is to test customer-facing wording against the law that actually governs the product, not just against the text of the contract. If...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v iSignthis Limited (Costs)
Business owners should read this case as a reminder that costs are a major part of litigation exposure. If a regulator or other claimant succeeds on the main case,...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v iSignthis Limited (Penalty)
The main lesson is that listed-company disclosure problems often arise from delay, incomplete explanations and overconfidence that an issue can be managed...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Macrolend Pty Ltd (No 3)
A business cannot avoid financial services regulation by describing an investment as a loan or promissory note if, in substance, the arrangement is a debenture, a...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Money3 Loans Pty Ltd (No 3)
The practical message for business owners is that responsible lending compliance is built file by file. If your business lends to consumers, the court's attention...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Open4Sale Global Ltd (No 2)
If your company is offering shares in Australia, do not assume fundraising compliance can be fixed later. This case involved admitted breaches of section 727(6)...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v RAMS Financial Group Pty Ltd
Read this case as a warning about both procedure and compliance. On procedure, a business affected by a regulator case may still be shut out if it cannot show the...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v RAMS Financial Group Pty Ltd (Penalty)
Business owners should read this case as a governance and operating-model decision, not just a referral-law decision. RAMS had a franchise-based credit distribution...
Australian Securities and Investments Commission v TerraCom Limited (No 2)
If your business, directors or senior staff are defending a regulator claim, do not assume that winning means the other side will reimburse most of your legal costs...
Australian Steel Manufacturing Pty Ltd v Selection Steel Trading Pty Ltd
Business owners should read this as a contract management case as much as an insolvency case. If you want your standard terms to govern future trading, make that...
AxiCorp Financial Services Pty Ltd v CABC (No 3)
If your business is in litigation, do not assume a settlement deed can clean up the court file after the event. This case shows the court may permit documents to be...
Bain v International Capital Markets Pty Ltd (No 4)
Business owners should read this as a data minimisation case as much as a privacy case. The Court did not decide the merits of the underlying class action. It...
Bakers Delight Holdings Ltd v Fair Work Ombudsman
For business owners, the plain English point is this: missing payroll records can change who has to prove what in court. Under s 557C, if an employer was required...
BCI Media Group Pty Ltd v CoreLogic Australia Pty Ltd (Amendment and Strikeout)
The practical message is that pleadings, particulars and expert evidence must work together from an early stage. A business cannot safely assume that an expert...