The Court of Appeal (Niall CJ, Richards and Donoghue JJA) published Northcote Shopping Centre Pty Ltd v Aldi Foods Pty Ltd [2026] VSCA 140 this morning.
The case was an application to overturn Croft J’s decision, referred to in this blog post, where his Honour had held that it was permissible under s 35(2) of the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic) to have rent reviews by CPI or current market rent with a cap on the amount of the increase. Croft J’s decision itself overturned a line of VCAT decisions concluding that caps ‘mixed’ two methods of review in breach of s 35(2) of the Act.
The Court of Appeal has refused leave to appeal, and so the law remains that caps are permissible on CPI or current market rent review provisions, at least if drafted consistently with the provisions of the Retail Leases Act 2003.
The Court of Appeal observed that, despite the cap, the review was still done pursuant to the methodology identified in s 35(2), so was not invalidated by a cap or ceiling imposed subsequently to that review methodology.
The Court’s reasons are not yet on Austlii, so we have included a link to those reasons here.
Sam Hopper SC and
Callum Dawlings
Sam Hopper Barrister 
June 16, 2026
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