A decision this week rejecting a proposed common fund order at the settlement approval stage of a class action against teleco Vocus has dashed the hopes of litigation funders that a recent High Court ruling would not foreclose on judges using discretion at the end of a case and will cement a return to bookbuilding and a focus on shareholder class actions by institutional investors.
A prominent silk deliberately misled a cost consultant retained to provide an opinion on the barrister’s fees to a court overseeing a class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities, then joked about it with lawyer and litigation funder Mark Elliott, a judge has been told.
A court has substantially dismissed an application for further discovery by three companies facing a lawsuit by chemical and energy giant Hanwha Solutions for patent infringement of its solar cell technology.
A former customer service manager for Qantas who claims to suffer from severe depression and anxiety has brought allegations of disability discrimination against Maurice Blackburn, claiming the law firm put pressure on her to settle her workers compensation case against the airline.
Google has been ordered to pay Melbourne gangland lawyer George Defteros $40,000 after it was found to have defamed him by publishing a link to an article that implied he had “crossed the already blurred line” between being a criminal solicitor and being a confidant to his underworld clients.
Investigations by ASIC led to prosecutors laying 279 criminal charges in the last six months of 2019, an increase of 300 percent on the previous six months, the corporate watchdog’s latest report reveals.
The COVID-19 pandemic and government social distancing restrictions were reasons to be flexible in applying and adapting the law, the judge overseeing the administration of Virgin Australia has said in exempting administrators from liability for unpaid leases and allowing Thursday’s meeting of the airlines’ creditors to be held by teleconference.
A former privacy regulator will investigate a data breach by the Federal Court that exposed the real names of hundreds of asylum seekers on its website.
A plaintiffs law firm has fired off another class action against Uber after losing a bid to amend the group definition in a class action brought against the ride-sharing giant last year.
The Big Four banks were trying to shore up their profits when they refused to pass on home loan interest rate cuts to consumers in full last year, an interim report of an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry has found.