Federal Court Justice Michael Lee is set to go out in the field on a nationwide tour to personally inspect the military bases and surrounding properties at the heart of three class actions against the Commonwealth of Australia over land contamination from allegedly toxic firefighting foam.
The judge overseeing the long-running class action over allegedly faulty Ford PowerShift transmissions has told the applicants they might need to put up considerable cash security to cover the “war and peace of discovery” disputes, after Ford slammed the delayed request for documents as “complete and utter nonsense”.
Veritas Advisory liquidator David Iannuzzi has admitted to “quite significant deficiencies” in his conduct as a liquidator and agreed to a 10-year ban from serving as an insolvency practitioner.
Frank Wilson, solicitor and founder of failed sandalwood producer Quintis, has been ordered by a court to repay a $13.3 million loan used to invest in a 215 hectare Indian sandalwood plantation.
Boutique class actions law firm Phi Finney McDonald has won its bid to reserve costs incurred before its case was permanently stayed in the AMP shareholder class action beauty contest, after the firm racked up at least 1,345 hours in “sunk costs”.
A judge has granted discovery of up to 32,000 documents just months out from the Forge investor class action trial, as she blasted the insurance company respondents for wasting resources after they failed to comply with the court’s previous orders.
Maurice Blackburn’s shareholder class action against AMP — the only action not backed by a litigation funder — has been picked as the winner in a fierce battle of law firms vying to lead a high stakes case over the wealth manager’s fees for no service scandal.
A ruling by a judge deciding a four-way contest to run a shareholder class action against AMP is expected this week, a judgment significant not just because it is the first time a court in Australia has been asked to choose among so many competing representative cases.
A judge has dismissed an application by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to investigate two Sydney-based liquidators, saying the regulator had failed to prove its suspicions about the pair.
An appeals court has dismissed a challenge by Veritas Advisory principal liquidator David Iannuzzi to the admissibility of evidence submitted by the Australian Taxation Office in the agency’s case seeking compensation and a 10-year ban.