Weil’s demise is getting ugly. About 10 former partners have lawyered up with Foley & Lardner’s Peter Wang, who repped 100+ lawyers in Dewey & LeBoeuf’s collapse, to claw back their equity before landlords and vendors get paid. Others are eyeing a fiduciary duty suit against longtime executive partner Barry Wolf’s management committee: AFR

⚖️ Tax/Employment: Uber is on the hook for $81.5m in payroll tax after the High Court dismissed its appeal 6-1, with Steward J dissenting. NSW issued assessments for 2015 to 2020 based on amounts paid to drivers. Uber argued those payments were made on behalf of passengers for a transport service, not “in relation to the performance of work” for Uber. The majority disagreed, finding drivers owed Uber an obligation to take riders “directly to their specified destination”, so remitted fares are deemed wages under the NSW Act. Other states are poised to follow, with the ruling carrying wide implications for the gig economy: High Court, Capital Brief

⚖️ Regulatory: ASIC has slapped 22 large proprietary companies with infringement notices totalling $4.36m for allegedly failing to lodge audited financial reports for FY25 on time. At $198k a pop, the hit list includes Hemmes Group, Pernod Ricard, Ingram Micro and Spendless Shoes. All have paid, though payment isn’t an admission of liability. That brings ASIC’s tally to 70 notices worth over $13.7m since its data-focused surveillance kicked off in August 2025. Some companies didn’t even know they had to lodge until ASIC came knocking. Commissioner Kate O’Rourke warned that directors are accountable for lodgement, and the crackdown continues into 2027: ASIC

⚖️ Crypto: Treasury has released draft laws that would give the ATO a much clearer view of Australians’ crypto. The package has three parts: adopting the OECD’s global crypto reporting framework, creating a new local reporting regime, and expanding existing international tax reporting rules to cover crypto and e-money products. Under the local regime, crypto exchanges and custodians would report their Australian users’ transactions to the ATO from 1 July 2027, including what was traded, when, and its dollar value. Much of the detail is left to regulations still to come, but the upshot is that the ATO will get far greater visibility of crypto holdings, both onshore and offshore: Gilbert + Tobin

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Trump spent a month telling voters to act like he was on the ballot at the US midterm elections, and it backfired. Democrats swept both chambers, flipping Senate seats in Texas, Kansas and South Carolina for the first time in decades. JD Vance blames the Iran war. Trump says he wasn’t on the ballot, and if he was, he’d have won “in a landslide”: Capital Brief, AP

Aussie students just recorded their worst-ever civics scores, with 72% not understanding the basics of democracy. Education ministers have now agreed to the biggest school overhaul in years, including new antisemitism and Holocaust lessons from next year and possibly mandatory civics for years 9 and 10: ABC

🏘️ Ingenia’s board has backed AVID’s revised bid over Warburg Pincus, after AVID used its matching right to lift its offer to $5.45 per security. That’s the same price as Warburg’s, but it’s enough to keep the PE giant locked out of DD under AVID’s process deed: Capital Brief

⛽️ Woodside could sell a slice of the North West Shelf to XRG, Macquarie analysts say, after the ADNOC-backed buyer paid Shell US$1.45bn for a 16.67% stake this week. If Woodside sold XRG the same-sized stake at the same price, XRG would own a third of the project: The Australian

💶 Meta has raised €9bn from its debut euro bond, pulling a record €53bn in orders, the most for any corporate deal in Europe. It lands days after a US$15bn dollar raise to fund its AI spend: Bloomberg

Fortescue has loaded iron ore onto the Mineral Europa, billed as the first bulk carrier on a commercial voyage powered by green ammonia rather than diesel. CEO Dino Otranto says green ammonia costs about the same as diesel. Up to 12 ammonia-powered ships will join its fleet before Forrest’s “real zero” deadline at decade’s end: The Australian

Revolut is now valued at US$115bn, up 53% in a year, after a share sale letting staff cash out, making it worth more than Barclays. After landing an Australian banking licence in July, it’s investing $400m in its local operations over five years to take on the big four: Capital Brief

David Jones has collapsed into voluntary administration after rent talks with landlords, including Scentre, broke down. The 188-year-old retailer wanted rent relief and early lease exits for loss-making stores, but Scentre says it’s been unpaid since Sept. It’s the third high-profile collapse linked to owner Anchorage Capital in a decade: AFR

Two of Heidi Health’s three co-founders are walking out, less than two months after the AI scribe hit a $1.26bn valuation. CTO Yu Liu is shifting to an advisory role before leaving in March, while Waleed Mussa wants more family time. CEO Thomas Kelly stays to steer a start-up Blackbird reckons is growing faster than Canva: AFR