Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting has avoided a discovery order that would cost an estimated $3 million to comply with, with a judge instead ordering that limited discovery be given to two Rinehart children in an ongoing family dispute over titles for the Hope Down iron ore mine.
A Victoria Supreme Court judge weighing for the first time an application by a law firm for a percentage cut of recoveries in class actions has been told to reject the bid because group members would fare better under the firm’s current no win, no fee funding arrangement.
A judge has awarded four sample group members in the Queensland floods class action $1.28 million in compensation, finding that charitable payments did not affect the amount of interest payable on the damages they are owed.
A $440 million settlement by the State of Queensland and dam operator Sunwater resolving a class action over the 2011 Queensland floods has been approved by a NSW judge.
The judge overseeing the first ever bid for a group costs order in a class action that will give the plaintiff’s law firm a percentage cut of the proceeds has urged the firm to rethink characterising its own solicitor as an expert.
The High Court has rejected special leave applications by mining magnate Gina Rinehart to appeal a ruling which only partially stayed a legal dispute over ownership rights and royalties relating to the Rinehart family-owned Hope Downs iron ore mine, with one judge calling the mining magnate’s arguments a “tortured articulation” and “very odd”.
The law firm behind a long-running class action over the 2011 floods in Queensland which reached a $440 million partial settlement last month has estimated that its legal bill to date totals around $60 million.
The State of Queensland and subcontractor Sunwater have agreed to pay $440 million to settle part of a class action over the 2011 floods in Queensland that destroyed 2,000 homes in the state.
Payouts in class actions in 2020 largely kept pace with the previous year despite the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, with companies and other defendants paying more than $696 million to settle class actions last year.
A judge has ruled that disaster payments cannot be taken into consideration in assessing damages in a long-running class action over the 2011 Queensland floods that destroyed 2,000 homes and claimed 12 lives.