It’s the best (or most disappointing) time of the year — payrise and bonus season, and the gap between US and Aussie Big Law couldn't be starker. Across the Pacific, Milbank and Cravath announce their bonuses and other firms match within days, with year-end bonuses topping out at US$140k. Here, top-tiers keep numbers firmly behind closed doors. Read more here: Point Blank

⚖️ Consumer: The ACCC has hauled Amazon AU to court over allegedly unfair contract terms used to slip ads into Prime Video without a refund option. The regulator alleges five unfair terms operated between November 2023 and August 2025, letting Amazon make adverse changes mid-contract with no remedy for subscribers. When ads landed in July 2024, previously ad-free customers had to stump up an extra $2.99 a month to escape them, despite annual subscribers already paying $79 upfront. The ACCC also alleges Amazon US drove the global ad rollout and helped implement it locally. The watchdog wants declarations, penalties and consumer redress: ACCC

⚖️ Employment: From today, Victoria's new Restricting Non-disclosure Agreements (Sexual Harassment at Work) Act clamps down on gag clauses. Workplace NDAs with complainants are only enforceable if the complainant actively asked for one. They also need an information statement, 21 days to review, and no undue pressure. Complainants can terminate the NDA after 12 months with just seven days' notice. NDAs with the harassment respondent is unenforceable if it stops an employer from investigating or warning a prospective employer once the allegations are substantiated. And a standard non-disclosure clause buried in an employment contract can't be used to silence a worker about sexual harassment either: HSF Kramer

⚖️ Corporate: ASIC has scored a partial win against collapsed budget carrier Rex, with the NSW Supreme Court finding the airline breached its continuous disclosure obligations by failing to correct an overly optimistic FY23 profit forecast. Justice Black held Rex had no reasonable grounds to expect positive operating profits from April 2023. The correction didn’t land until June, by which point the share price had dropped 12%. The former chairman admitted liability. But the case against the non-executive directors flopped, with the court unconvinced they actually knew the guidance was misleading: Lawyerly

Malcolm Turnbull reckons Australia needs to grow a spine and demand access to the latest AI models instead of waiting on Washington's say-so. The dig comes after the Trump administration locked Aussie organisations out of Anthropic's Mythos model entirely: AFR

The yen hit its weakest point since 1986, trading at 162.40 against the US dollar. Tokyo already spent a record ¥11.73tn (about US$72.4bn) buying up yen last month just to stop the slide, and traders reckon another round of intervention could be coming: Bloomberg

🔩 South32 is offloading nearly its entire aluminium portfolio to Alcoa in a deal worth up to US$5.6bn, covering Worsley Alumina, Hillside Aluminium and three Brazilian assets. New CEO Matthew Daley says it's all about going lean on copper, zinc and silver. Mallesons reps South32 and Ashurst Perkins Coie acts for Alcoa: Mining.com

⛏️ IGO has snapped up full control of the Arizona‑based Copper Wolf project, buying out Buxton Resources' remaining 49% stake for $6.15m cash. The site sits within one of the world’s most copper‑rich geological belts: Capital Brief