Gangland relief as underworld figures dodge witness box (2025)

Exonerated gangland figure Faruk Orman has settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against barrister-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo on the eve of a trial that could have forced a slew of his underworld associates to give evidence.

Orman had been seeking millions of dollars from his former lawyer over her key role in corrupting his 2008 prosecution for murder that resulted in him spending 12 years in jail before being set free after an appeal.

The compensation trial was due to begin in the Supreme Court on Monday. The court confirmed the case was now delayed. The settlement deal will still have to be finalised by the court.

Orman’s decision to settle comes after a legal ruling last month that allowed the potential introduction of new evidence about his alleged involvement in the ongoing Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union corruption scandal.

Orman’s alleged involvement in negotiating profitable enterprise bargaining deals through questionable connections to the CFMEU was revealed last year as part of the Building Bad investigative series by this masthead, The Australian Financial Review and 60 Minutes.

Gobbo’s lawyers also issued subpoenas that could have compelled testimony from underworld figures including Mick Gatto, Steve “The Turk” Kaya and Fedele “Freddie the Bear” D’Amico.

An underworld source, who cannot be publicly identified, said Orman’s associates were “real unhappy” about potentially being forced to enter the witness box and answer questions about their activities under cross-examination by Gobbo’s lawyers.

The move was made possible after a Supreme Court decision that went in Gobbo’s favour last month that allowed her to access and introduce a swath of new evidence potentially disputing Orman’s claims that his reputation had been damaged by her misconduct.

Orman was found guilty of the 2002 murder of underworld figure Victor Peirce and sentenced to 20 years’ jail in 2009.

It emerged in a 2019 appeal against that conviction, and during the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants, that Gobbo and Victoria Police had corrupted Orman’s right to a fair trial.

Gobbo had been working as both his lawyer and a registered police informer, providing information about his case and working to turn witnesses against him.

“[Gobbo’s] conduct was a fundamental breach of her duties to Mr Orman and to the court ... There was, accordingly, a substantial miscarriage of justice,” the Court of Appeal found.

Since his release from prison in 2019, Orman has emerged as an influential player in the Victorian construction industry through his connections to the CFMEU and Gatto.

Among the items the court had recently allowed Gobbo to search through were “all letters, emails, text messages, or messages exchanged on any other messaging services between [Orman] and any official or employee of the CFMEU” over a four-year period.

Loading

“Orman submitted that the damage to his reputation occurred when he was prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for murder and that anything that occurred over a decade later, after his conviction had been overturned and he was freed from prison, was irrelevant to the issue of reputation raised by the proceeding. I reject Orman’s submission,” Justice Andrew Keogh ruled in March.

“Gobbo wishes to show that Orman’s reputation has been damaged by his business dealings and interactions with CFMEU officials, and to have the use of the discovered documents for that purpose.”

In November 2024, Orman settled his lawsuit against Victoria Police for an undisclosed sum after the state government passed a law retroactively capping potential police compensation payouts for the Lawyer X scandal at $1 million.

A source familiar with the litigation but not authorised to speak publicly said Orman had been seeking about $8 million before the law was passed.

Orman’s lawyer, Jeremy King, and Gobbo’s barrister, Tim Tobin, declined to comment.

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.