Is the Remedial Constructive Trust Fair Game? Farm Transparency International Ltd v The Game Meats Company of Australia Pty Ltd

Abstract

Can a constructive trust be imposed over copyright in footage created in the course of a covert trespass? To put the same question a different way: can a constructive trust be imposed in the absence of a pre-existing relationship between the parties and over property that the claimant never owned? These are novel questions in Australia that may fall to be considered in the High Court of Australia appeal in Farm Transparency International Ltd v The Game Meats Company of Australia Pty Ltd. These questions are not novel in the United States, where a broad view of the potential of the remedial constructive trust has been taken.