The applicant in a $47.6 million class action against a unit of car leasing company McMillan Shakespeare has been denied access to insurance documents sought to determine the value of the case, with a judge saying access would “distort the playing field”.
Noting the challenge of searching for documentary evidence while employees are working from home, a judge overseeing two consumer class actions against ANZ and Westpac has directed the banks to hand over only a limited number of documents to the applicants, and given them extra time to do it.
A six-week trial scheduled for February in a criminal cartel case against mobile equipment provider Country Care Group could be vacated a second time as lawyers for the defendants seek to appeal the judge’s planned directions to a jury in the groundbreaking case.
ASIC and other government regulators bringing enforcement action in the docket of one Federal Court judge must abide by a strict new protocol to prevent a repeat of the corporate watchdog’s “wait and see” strategy in a case against ex-Murray Goulburn directors that came close, the judge said, to bringing the administration of justice into disrepute.
NSW Ports Operations has denied claims that an agreement for the privatisation of its subsidiaries Port Botany and Port Kembla stymied competition, describing the allegations made by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as “slight or hypothetical”.
A judge has agreed to postpone a trial against logistics provider GetSwift until next year when a class action and a lawsuit by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission related to the company’s disclosures will be heard consecutively rather than concurrently.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission wants to add GetSwift’s former inhouse lawyer as a respondent in its enforcement action against the logistics company, as debate rages over whether a class action against the company should be postponed.
NSW Ports has criticised the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for expecting the company to file a defence to the regulator’s allegations of anti-competitive conduct from a concise statement it panned as “vague”.