Morrison responds to Michael West, page-40

Possibly explains the behaviour of both parties

https://www.copyright link/rear-window/indie-publisher-michael-west-battles-underpayment-claim-20230629-p5dke0

’When not taking on the big banks or railing about multinational tax avoidance, indie publisher Michael West is being sued by his nephew, who claims he wasn’t paid properly.

Next month, the ex-Fairfax Media rabble-rouser is due to appear in Sydney’s Federal Circuit Court on a case brought by Alex Anstey, who for several years contributed illustrations to West’s eponymous business publication Michael West Media. For this, he was paid a series of sums, ranging from $200 a week to $730.59 a week.

Anstey’s suit, as argued in his statement of claim, is that as an employee, he was entitled to (but didn’t receive) minimum hourly rates under the 2010 Journalists Published Media Award. West’s defence (again, per court documents) argues that Anstey was an independent contractor, and so, wasn’t. The difference between those two positions is several years of allegedly lost wages (plus legal fees).

Michael West is being sued by his nephew for allegedly not paying him properly. Putting Anstey’s case forward are the class-action lawyers at Shine, whose billing (like that of the firm’s famous ambassador Erin Brockovich) is usually on a no-win no-fee basis. No such luck for West, for whom we understand defending the case is quite a cash-drain.

Such cases are a dime a dozen and this one is right in Shine’s wheelhouse. Still, we doubt the law firm’s operatives have failed to notice West’s critical coverage of the firm In January (so, some six months after the underpayment case was filed), West posted a lengthy investigation accusing Shine of sprucing up its cash flows, along similar lines to a 2017 class action brought against it (which was settled in 2019 with no admission of fault).

A two-page published response from Shine chief Simon Morrison said West’s analysis was “misleading” and “contains factual errors”.Recently, Michael West Media’s focus has shifted to a now-settled class action Shine ran against Johnson & Johnson, for which Shine controversially tapped pricey external financing its litigants now have to pay the interest on. (A report in Lawyerly cites how concerns over this have been echoed by Federal Court Justice Michael Lee, who in a costs hearing this month questioned why class-action litigants had been exposed into “usurious” interest rates while the ASX-listed Shine itself paid out dividends to investors.)Contacted last week, West said his outlet’s Shine coverage is “of high public interest” and of “no connection to the other matter”.That we don’t doubt. Still, if Shine does end up taking West to the cleaners, surely it won’t overly pity the loss.’