Aussie lawyers have never worked harder for free. The Australian Pro Bono Centre says signatories clocked a record 43.2 hours each in FY2026, well above the 35-hour target. Every firm with 450+ lawyers cleared the bar, while one mid-sized firm scraped together a measly 2.6 average hours per lawyer. See the full breakdown: Point Blank

⚖️ Employment: The Fair Work Commission has backed AGL’s refusal to let a customer service consultant caring for her mother with dementia work exclusively from home. She’d worked remotely since 2020, but her performance ratings had slipped. Deputy President Clancy found the refusal was on reasonable business grounds, as she needed in-person coaching to lift her game. Her team lead hadn’t even met her face-to-face after seven months. Still, the FWC ordered a compromise: just four hours in the office each fortnight for a six-month trial: FWC

⚖️ Corporate: ASIC is suing Ryzon Materials (formerly Magnis Energy) over alleged disclosure failures about its US battery plant. The trial wrapped in February, but judgment’s still reserved. Meanwhile, Ryzon tried to hand its only real asset, a parcel of Sow Good shares, to shareholders via a capital reduction, leaving about $30k in the bank and nothing set aside for any penalty. Younan J granted an interim injunction to stop it, finding Ryzon, which bore the onus, couldn’t prove the reduction wouldn’t materially prejudice its ability to pay creditors, including ASIC. Evidently, companies can’t just strip assets after trial to dodge a penalty: Federal Court of Australia

⚖️ Arbitration: The NSW Supreme Court has sent a dispute over a pizza-making robot to arbitration in Stockholm. Robot X, a distributor of Placer Robotics’ “Pizzabot”, sued in NSW in tort, under the ACL and for breach of an undertaking, arguing the arbitration clause only covered breaches of the distribution agreement itself. Scruby J disagreed and stayed the claims under the International Arbitration Act. The clause covered disputes “in connection with” the agreement, which caught all of Robot X’s claims. Placer hadn’t waived arbitration either — defending an urgent injunction and giving undertakings isn’t abandoning the right to arbitrate: Supreme Court of NSW

WA wants one giant uni. Premier Roger Cook has kicked off a business case to merge Curtin, UWA and Murdoch into a single institution of almost 120,000 students, the biggest in the country. All three unis have pushed back, with Curtin vowing to “vigorously oppose” it: ABC News

Rage-typing at your AI could now get you booted. Anthropic has updated its usage policy to ban “sustained and needless” cruelty towards Claude. Venting and pushback are fine, but what counts as “cruel” isn’t defined. A tech partner at an Irish law firm says “you can’t be cruel to numbers and maths”: BBC

📉 Coatue Management has emerged as a key factor in Firmus’ ASX float falling over. The San Francisco investment giant was expected to buy up to US$1bn in shares but committed less than US$100m: AFR

🤝 Janus Henderson is hunting for a PE partner to help carve up Perpetual in a $2bn takeover, with KKR tipped to take the corporate trustee arm. A consortium deal would sidestep the hefty CGT bill that killed KKR’s last bid for the unit: AFR

☕ Starbucks says it’s not buying Chipotle, killing off talk of one of the restaurant sector’s biggest-ever deals. The rumours kicked off after the FT reported Starbucks, run by ex-Chipotle boss Brian Niccol, had worked up a takeover bid: Bloomberg

Resources projects will need just 19,549 new workers, the fewest since AREEA began tracking in 2019, despite a record $143bn investment pipeline. That’s down 12% in a year. More money is going into keeping ageing mines running, not growing headcount: The Australian

ASIC says mortgage brokers passed over the cheapest home loan in more than one in five recommendations, often without clear evidence to back it. Brokers can pick a pricier loan if it better suits the borrower. There’s no sign of commission-chasing, but the regulator wants brokers to document and justify pricier picks: AFR

Telstra took former exec John Ieraci to court the day before he was due to start at rival Vocus. He’s now given court undertakings not to work on security or managed services products, or with his old Telstra clients, until January 2027. He’s also barred from poaching staff or sharing confidential info: AFR

Meta has launched Muse Wonder, a new family of AI models it says finally puts it level with Anthropic and OpenAI. They’re built for complex multi-step tasks, like disputing an insurance claim, with memory and the ability to try different approaches: Business Insider