Approving coal mine projects is not the business of courts, the Morrison government has argued in its challenge to a landmark class action judgment that found it had a duty of care to protect Australian children from the effects of climate change.
Recent changes to the law requiring funded class actions to be registered as managed investment schemes have complicated the question of how best to resolve the multiplicity issue in two class actions brought against Freedom Foods and Deloitte.
The Commonwealth says a landmark ruling in a class action that found it has a duty of care to protect Australian children from the effects of global warming is “incoherent” and distorts its ability to balance competing interests.
The federal Minister for the Environment has lost a bid to declass a class action brought over climate change risks from an expansion of the Whitehaven coal mine, with a judge making a declaration that the government owes a duty to all Australian children to protect them from global warming.
Class actions are the next battleground following Thursday’s Federal Court ruling that the government owes a duty of care to protect children from the risks of climate change, according to a number of legal experts.
The federal Minister for the Environment owes a duty of care to children who could suffer “catastrophic” harms from increased greenhouse gas emissions that would result from approving the expansion of Whitehaven’s Vickery coal mine, a judge has ruled.
The stage is set for a beauty parade of two shareholder class actions against Freedom Foods and Deloitte, and the judge overseeing the cases has embraced the recommendation of the High Court to appoint an independent barrister to represent group members in the contest.
The lead applicant in a class action against Bayer over its allegedly defective Essure contraceptive devices has won court approval to drop her consumer law claims against the German drug maker, with a judge agreeing that the plaintiff’s defect and negligence claims had a better chance of succeeding.
Food and beverage manufacturer Freedom Foods and accounting giant Deloitte have been hit with a second class action by irate investors seeking compensation for “accounting errors” that led to a $590 million write-down in November last year.
The lead applicant in a class action against Bayer over allegedly defective Essure contraceptive devices will ask the court to discontinue its claims against two makers of the controversial medical implants.