The ABC spent $3.42 million in legal fees in the 2023-24 financial year, new documents obtained by Crikey under freedom of information (FOI) laws reveal.
The documents also show that the ABC dealt with two unfair dismissal or Fair Work matters in the 2023-24 financial year. The costs associated with one of those matters was $0; the other matter is that of sacked presenter Antoinette Lattouf’s ongoing unfair dismissal case against the broadcaster.
Lattouf commenced legal proceedings in December 2023 after being dismissed from a five-day casual contract on ABC Radio Sydney. It followed an Instagram post by Lattouf of a Human Rights Watch report alleging Israel was using starvation as a tool of war, and a subsequent campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists that targeted then ABC chair Ita Buttrose and managing director David Anderson.
What portion of the $3.42 million was spent on the legal battle with Lattouf is unclear. Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi put questions to the broadcaster in Senate estimates in May, asking how much the ABC had spent on the case. In August, the ABC responded, declining to provide the figure to avoid “prejudice [to] the ABC’s position in those legal proceedings”. The ABC confirmed that it was being represented by leading employment law firm Seyfarth Shaw, with a partner and two associates working on the case. The ABC has also engaged two barristers for the proceedings, including leading silk Ian Neil SC.
Faruqi said in August that “the public has a right to know how much the ABC is spending to defend their sacking of journalist Antoinette Lattouf”.
A spokesperson for the ABC declined to confirm how much had been spent specifically on the Lattouf matter.
A Sydney barrister specialising in employment law, speaking to Crikey on the condition of anonymity, said it wasn’t unreasonable to think the cost of the Lattouf case could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Realistically, a very small matter in say, the Fair Work Commission or the Industrial Court, just a small kind of [discrimination] matter or something, these are about $200,000,” the barrister said.
They estimated a one-week trial in the Federal Court with “a silk of that eminence” would cost around $10,000 to $15,000 a day.
“And then you’ve got a junior as well who might be charging $5,000 a day. That’s the barristers, plus the preparation in advance. And then solicitors … a partner at a large law firm these days charges probably around the $800 an hour mark,” they said.
They went on to explain that the workload for lawyers in a case would be “at least three weeks [worth of work] for a one week hearing … a silk wouldn’t be doing all of that though,” and confirmed that the weeks in question were significantly longer than the standard 40-hour work week.
Information relating to the costs of defamation cases at the ABC was also removed from the scope of Crikey’s FOI request, but in October 2023 the ABC was ordered to pay $412,315 plus costs to former Special Forces commando Heston Russell in a high-profile defamation loss. Russell had engaged the services of eminent defamation silk Sue Chrysanthou SC, who was instructed by the high-profile Rebekah Giles.
