Btf 5903 Semester Two 2015 Legal Briefing Option D

BTF5903

Semester Two 2015

Legal Briefing

OPTION D

BACKGROUND

You work as an intern for a small cutting edge pharmaceutical company, Siter Pty Ltd. Mary-Jane, your boss, asks you to attend an important meeting whilst she is attends a sales conference in Sydney. You arrive at the meeting to discover Michael the founder and largest shareholder of Siter, together with his personal assistant are sitting at the table. Opposite them are some strangers wearing very conservative suits - they look like lawyers. Sure enough they are lawyers from the firm Maurice Blackburn and they inform you that they represent several victims who have been attacked by X, a criminal recently released on parole by the Victoria Parole Board. One of their clients is considering legal action against the State of Victoria City of Melbourne and claiming $5,000,000 damages.

Everyone turns to look at you, and you have a bad feeling that this meeting is about to wreck your day and sure enough the lawyers from Maurice Blackburn say: “Here is our client’s letter of demand.  We will be in touch.” After they leave Michael looks at you and says: “This could ruin us, just as we are about to finalise negotiations with Roche (a very large pharmaceutical company). Find out what you can and sort this out QUICKLY!!!”

You race back to your office to do some research. This is what you discover.  

FACTS

X is a violent offender recently released from prison by the Parole Board of Victoria.^[1]  Ten years ago he had been sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment for several offences including: kidnapping, assault, and rape. The Parole Board of Victoria released him on 28th May 2015 into the community without supervision, provided he stay at his sister’s residence. The Parole Board released X for the following reasons:

1. He had enrolled in and completed the Sexual Offenders Rehabilitation Course whilst in prison.
2. He had even undergone voluntary “chemical castration” through an on-going anti-androgen treatment program.
3. He had been a “model” prisoner, working to help prison authorities to rehabilitate other prisoners, and completing an Arts degree whilst in jail.
4. He planned to become a social worker working with troubled youth.
5. He agreed to wear an E-tag- an electronic tracking device that had a GPS and kept authorities aware of his location at all times.
6. In their opinion he was no longer a threat to the community.

On the 12th June he had assaulted several women in Fitzroy. X claimed that he had been taking his medication as required by the treatment program (mentioned in 2 above).  In his statement to police X appeared disorientated and suffering from symptoms associated with being bipolar or another form of mental illness. He also stated that he had discontinued his medication because it worsened his diabetes, and was making him obese, which fed his desire to inflict revenge through violent sexual behaviour. It was also discovered that he had early signs of liver cancer.

X is currently imprisoned in a holding cell for those with violent tendencies and apparent medical tests taken so far appear to indicate that the medication developed by Siter had worsened his mental illness, and instead of reducing his levels of testosterone, and reducing his sex drive had in fact had the opposite effect. The fact that anti-androgen medication could cause side effects such as obesity, or feelings of weakness, were well-documented, and had been made known by Siter’s representatives to the Victoria State government. In fact similar medications developed by other pharmaceutical companies had similar side effects, but what Siter’s representatives had not told the Victorian government was that there was a 1 in 250,000 chance that the medication would have the reverse effect of over stimulating the patient’s sex drive and increase their levels of testosterone, X was that 1 in 250,000 chance.

Siter’s representatives had not told the State government because firstly, it was such a low probability, and secondly, because Siter was involved in serious business negotiations with Roche, a large company that was interested in buying the intellectual property for a number of new products developed by Siter. The contract with the government of Victoria was worth some $4,000,000 to Siter, but more importantly a successful outcome would enhance Siter’s position during the negotiations with Roche - in fact it could increase the price Roche would be willing to pay by 300%, with obvious benefits for the shareholders of Siter. So the Siter representative decided not to tell the Victorian government in case the government changed its mind about using their products. Instead the representative stated that there were the “usual side effects- increased weight, feelings of weakness, and that patients with diabetes could also suffer some problems…” A summary of the terms of the contract include: