Australian court approves suit against Mobil

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the oil company had sought to strike out the claim as an abuse of process and argued that tax specialists Firmstone and Feil were ‘trafficking in litigation’. But Justice Robert McDougall said even if the firm had initiated and controlled the proceedings, it did not follow that its conduct was improper. ‘The reality is that if the litigation succeeds, it will succeed for the benefit of the plaintiffs,’ he said. ‘The case cannot be dismissed as hopeless; indeed if the analogy in Roxborough (a 2001 case which returned tobacco licence fees to retailers) holds up, it is likely to succeed.’ The judge was referring to cases that followed a 1997 ruling by the High Court declaring state-levied tobacco taxes illegal. But tobacco companies kept collecting the tax and litigation funders have been clawing the money back on behalf of retailers. Full report in the Sydney Morning Herald