Banking Thursday, 9 April 2015 View in browser

A daily Bulletin listing our choice of Decisions of Superior Courts of Australia.
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Executive Summary (One Minute Read)
Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd v Commonwealth of Australia (HCA) - Constitutional law - special case - Div 48, Pt 3 Sch 1 Clean Energy Regulations 2011 (Cth) did not contravene s99 Constitution
Dallas Buyers Club LLC v iiNet Ltd (FCA) - preliminary discovery granted to owner of copyright in film on conditions
Lisec Australia Pty Ltd and Saremach Pty Ltd v Lisec Australia (NSWSC) - contract - evidence - interim preservation order in respect of machinery
Summaries With Link (Five Minute Read)
Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd v Commonwealth of Australia [2015] HCA 12
High Court of Australia
French CJ; Hayne, Kiefel, Bell, Gageler, Keane & Nettle JJ
Constitutional law - special case to determine whether Div 48, Pt 3 Sch 1 Clean Energy Regulations 2011 (Cth) was invalid in application to plaintiff as result of giving preference to one State over another contrary to s99 Constitution - plaintiff contended Jobs and Competitiveness Program contravened s99 because allocative baselines it prescribed by were fixed by reference to industry averages and resulted in same number of free carbon units per unit volume of production regardless of differences between producers’ inputs, production processes and outputs - held: validity of provisions of Regulations upheld - Div 48 did not give preference to one State over another - no contravention of s99 Constitution.
QueenslandNickel
Dallas Buyers Club LLC v iiNet Ltd [2015] FCA 317
Federal Court of Australia
Perram J
Preliminary discovery - owner of copyright in film sought preliminary discovery of documents - internet service providers were respondents to application - applicants claimed they had identified 4,726 unique IP addresses from which their film was shared on-line their permission contrary to Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) - held: ISPs to divulge names and physical addresses of customers associated with each of IP addresses identified by applicants on condition information only be used for purposes of recovering compensation for infringements and not otherwise disclosed without Court’s leave - Court also imposed condition that applicants were to submit draft of any letter they proposed to send to account holders associated with IP addresses.
Dallas
Lisec Australia Pty Ltd and Saremach Pty Ltd v Lisec Australia [2015] NSWSC 365
Supreme Court of New South Wales
Campbell J
Contract - proceedings relating to sale of complex machinery - plaintiff sought  interim preservation order in respect of machinery so that evidence could be gathered for it to defend proceedings - plaintiff concerned that moving machine might cause loss of data which would make it impossible to diagnose any difficulty and, specifically, may make it impossible to obtain expert evidence to defend the case - r 25.3 Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) - held: Court made interim preservation order for a limited period and timetable to facilitate prompt exchange of evidence.
Lisec