Apparently, Allens isn't a happy place right now. Partners aren't upset about the actual work done for KPMG, it's the combative way leadership handled the fallout. New boss Marc Kemp copped eye rolls for his parliamentary committee performance, while Ross Drinnan, the face of the response, is getting frozen out by his own colleagues: AFR

⚖️ Employment: Volunteers take note: you might count as a 'whistleblower' under the Corporations Act, even without pay or a contract. In Wood v Royal Agricultural Society of NSW, a Boer goat exhibitor sued the RAS after it allegedly punished her for raising misconduct complaints. The RAS tried to strike her claim out, arguing she wasn't a 'supplier of services or goods'. Justice Needham disagreed. Her unpaid fundraising and volunteer 'Breed Captain' role were enough, and supply doesn't need to be ongoing or recent. One claim did fail though — an award she'd received was just passive recognition, not a supply: Clayton Utz

⚖️ Corporate/Privilege: A group of shareholders, dubbed the 'Oxford Consortium', tried to oust DRA Global's CEO by getting other shareholders to sign deeds promising to vote him out. DRA's lawyers accused them of breaching the 20% takeover threshold in s 606 of the Corporations Act, and the consortium got legal advice before withdrawing their notices. In Naude v DRA Australia (No 2), the ousted CEO tried to access that advice, arguing it furthered the illegal scheme, so privilege shouldn't apply. Jackson J disagreed, finding the advice came after the allegations landed and after the scheme's active steps had stopped — consistent with checking their legal exposure, not continuing the plan: Federal Court of Australia

⚖️ Regulatory: ASIC just won its first big test case on internal dispute resolution (IDR), the process licensees must follow when handling customer complaints under ASIC's RG 271 rules. In ASIC v Telstra Super, the Federal Court found Telstra Super breached those rules 204 times across 125 complaints, blowing the 45-day response deadline and sending vague "ongoing investigation" delay notices instead of explaining the actual hold-up. Its excuse, that COVID and complex cases justified the delays, didn't fly either, as it couldn't prove a real link between the two. The silver lining: the breaches weren't serious enough to also breach the broader "efficient, honest and fair" duty in s 912A: Mills Oakley

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Plibersek wants reform requiring social media users to actively opt in to algorithmic feeds, not just opt out, after a young boy setting up social media gets fed "misogynistic, violent" content within 23 minutes. Hanson-Young and the Greens are onside too, tying it to a Digital Duty of Care that'll make platforms legally liable for what they push: Capital Brief

Voluntary assisted dying is now legal everywhere in Australia, after the NT finally passed its bill, decades after the Commonwealth overturned the Territory's original 1995 law. Patients need a prognosis under 12 months to qualify, and doctors still can't raise VAD themselves. Only the NT and SA still have that gag clause in place: ABC News

💳 PayPal's shares cratered over 15% after Bloomberg reported Advent International and Stripe have walked from their takeover tilt. The pair had offered US$60.50 a share in July, valuing PayPal at roughly US$53bn: Bloomberg

⛏️ Bids are reportedly in for Rio Tinto's $300m Mt Cattlin lithium mine, with Develop Global, Delta Lithium and Core Lithium among the suitors circling. The WA spodumene operation's been in care and maintenance since 2025 thanks to weak prices: The Australian

🍼 Partners Group and Quadrant Private Equity are eyeing a merger of their childcare assets, Guardian and Affinity Education, as the sector's scandal-hit economics push PE owners toward scale: AFR