ABC running up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal case involving TV show The Checkout

The ABC is facing another massive legal bill arising from a court dispute involving TV show The Checkout.

The ABC has been involved in another legal dispute involving a fallout over the TV series The Checkout.

The ABC is facing a legal bill that could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars over a long-running dispute being fought out in court over consumer affairs program The Checkout.

The case has resulted in the public broadcaster being criticised in court for failing to be a “model litigant” in the matter – despite ABC chair David Anderson telling Senate Estimates a fortnight ago the public broadcaster was bound by “model litigant rules”.

The dispute started in mid-2019 and has ended up in NSW’s Supreme Court with The Checkout’s executive producer Julian Morrow — one of the founders of The Chaser — pitted against former business partner Nicholas ­Murray.

Morrow’s company Giant Dwarf Pty Ltd and Murray’s company Cordell Jigsaw Productions Pty Ltd have been in disagreement after Morrow claimed Murray didn’t comply with a terms of sale share agreement.

The Checkout was in hiatus at the time of the share agreement but Murray claims he later found out Morrow was in secret discussions with the ABC about the program returning to the TV screens.

The ABC has been involved in the case but is not a party in the dispute.

There were 78 episodes of the program that aired from 2013 through until 2018.

Freedom of Information documents obtained by The Australian show external bills and invoices to the ABC relating to two joined legal disputes including Giant Dwarf Pty Ltd, The Checkout Pty Ltd and Julian Morrow versus Cordall Jigsaw Productions Pty Ltd and Nicholas Murray have already reached $188,000.

Documents show Sydney-based external legal firm Banki Haddock Fiora has been representing the ABC in The Checkout dispute, after both parties had subpoenaed documents from the public broadcaster.

The Australian has previously reported the ABC has up to 30 in-house legal staff but in this matter it chose to engage an external firm.

In a court judgment Justice James Stevenson said the ABC produced documents required for the court action in “redacted form” and criticised it for its handling of important information.

“Many months after producing the documents in redacted form, the ABC belatedly sought ­retrospective confirmation of its redactions, and then only to a limited extent,” he said. “This is not how any party, let alone a model litigant such as the ABC should conduct itself.”

The taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s bills are expected to continue to balloon as the matter returns to court later this month.

It’s one of many cases the ABC has been involved with in the past few years – the defamation action involving former attorney-general Christian Porter cost the public broadcaster at least $780,000.

Last month it was revealed the ABC had so far racked up a legal bill of $184,000 for the defamation action taken by federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming against ABC investigative reporter Louise Milligan for defamatory tweets she posted about him.

Murray said he so far had spent more than $100,000 pursuing documents from the ABC in addition to his own litigation costs. He said ABC “should have handed them over without anyone spending a cent”.

Morrow and the ABC declined to comment.