News

Katrina Howard SC acted for the 3rd to 8th respondents, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Organon and Arrow, in their successful defence of a patent infringement claim brought by Pfizer.

The decision of Justice Burley, published on 15 September 2026, was the culmination of a near decade long dispute, which commenced with Pfizer’s application for preliminary discovery in 2017.

The case concerned a patent relating to a method for producing etanercept, a drug used to treat autoimmune diseases. The patent was held to be invalid for obviousness, save for one claim, and the process used by Samsung Bioepis to produce etanercept was held not to infring e the patent even if the patent had been valid.

Read the judgment here.

On 11 September 2026, the Supreme Court of NSW delivered judgment in Re RD Beechworth Pty Limited [2026] NSWSC 1098 (Nixon J), in which Andre Zahra SC and Frank Tao (instructed by Tina Hua of Tahota Law Firm) appeared for the successful plaintiffs.

The proceeding concerned a just and equitable winding up application brought by aggrieved investors in respect of a property development to be carried out by the defendant company. The plaintiffs, with other legal advisors, had failed in a previous proceeding to recover their $5 million loan to the company.

Notwithstanding the plaintiffs’ position as minority shareholders, having no directorship or control of the defendant company, and associated information asymmetry, the plaintiffs successfully deployed expert evidence from a valuer, a town planner, a quantity surveyor and an insolvency practitioner, to prove that the defendant company’s proposed property development was financially unviable and that the company should not be allowed to continue, and for that reason (among others), the company should be wound up on the just and equitable ground.

Read the judgment here.