the electric internet

[1] The Bell group of companies had a splendid radiance in the commercial life of Australia during the 1970s and early to mid-1980s. The group also had aspirations to international prominence. It was a favourite of the stock market and had accumulated (at least on paper) a relative fortune. But as the Bard so wisely remarked: ‘You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time flies’ (William Shakespeare, ‘Timon of Athens’, III v 96.). By the early 1990s fortune, friends and time had flown. This litigation is a result. It is a dispute of Brobdingnagian proportions that emerges wraithlike from the still-smoking ashes of the late 1980s: an unfortunate period in this State’s business and political history.

[……….. much, much later ………..]

[9759] I am not so naïve as to believe that the handing down of these reasons will mark the end of the litigation. But stranger things have happened. It is still not too late for the parties to put an end to this saga by a negotiated settlement, guided (perhaps) by the findings I have made. If formal judgment is never entered, or of there is a consent judgment on negotiated terms (whether or not they accord with what is contained in these reasons) I will be the last person to complain.

[9760] Whatever the parties decide to do from here, my role in the litigation will come to an end in the near future. Selfish though it may seem, for me that is the primary concern. I will try to engender sympathy for those who come after me: but I make no promises.

[9761] From time to time during the last five years I felt as if I were confined to an oubliette. There were occasions on which I thought the task of completing this case might be sempiternal. Fortunately, I have not yet been called upon to confront the infinite and, better still, a nepenthe beckons. Part of the nepenthe (which may even bear that name) is likely to involve a yeast-based substance. It will most certainly involve a complete avoidance of making decisions and writing judgments.

[9762] For the moment, in the words of Ovid (with an embellishment from the old Latin Mass): Iamque opus exegi, Deo gratias (“And now I have finished the work, thanks be to God.”).