High Court rejects appeal application by Ballarat accounting firm
What happened
The Supreme Court of Victoria originally ordered Mulachy to pay Porter and Conheady over $26 million in damages. However, the appeals court overturned Mulcahy’s obligation to repay the $6 million to Porter, finding that Mulcahy did not breach his fiduciary duties to Porter as the facts indicated they did not have a close, trusted relationship. This matters for Professional Services & HR because contracting activity changes leverage, market appetite, and which clauses buyers can credibly trade with 26, 6, 20 as the clearest commercial anchors; Rate caps is now more valuable
Buyer takeaway
For Professional Services & HR, the buyer read-through is commercial leverage: scope, validity windows, reopeners, and term structure may now matter as much as headline pricing
Cost / money
The money issue may come through term structure rather than base price alone, especially if suppliers push for escalation language, shorter validity, or broader pass-through
Supplier / commercial
This is primarily a contracting story: revisit scope boundaries, extension mechanics, and which party carries volatility before those assumptions harden in a live tender
Safety / operations
The main operations question is whether the contract still matches field reality. If scope, response times, or liabilities are vague, the risk usually shows up during execution
What to watch
Watch scope creep, liability pushback, and term changes that move volatility back onto the buyer even if the base rate looks manageable
Key facts
- The Supreme Court of Victoria originally ordered Mulachy to pay Porter and Conheady over $26
- However, the appeals court overturned Mulcahy’s obligation to repay the $6 million to Porter
- With the High Court last week refusing the special leave application with costs, Mulachy, tog
- Remington, who has acted for Porter and Conheady since the case began in 2019, said his clien
