The former senior counsel in a settled insurance class action against Westpac has had his fees reduced by $70,000 after the Federal Court heard some of the work for which he charged was not done in the interests of group members.
The judge overseeing class actions against Commonwealth Bank over its money laundering compliance failures has threatened to force the parties to go to trial by a certain date if they can’t agree to “sensible” time limits to ready the case for hearing, noting he would reach retirement age in 2024.
A judge has said the applicant in a class action against Brambles has “side-stepped” a challenge to a landmark class closure ruling that found there was no statutory power to shut out unregistered class action members, a decision that he said had “bedevilled” the courts.
A judge has approved a $50 million settlement in a shareholder class action against failed training company Vocation and auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, but questioned whether the $10.9 million commission and $12.75 million legal bill could have been “materially lower” had the case been run by one funder and firm instead of two.
The number of lawyers involved in a class action against 3A Composites over allegedly combustible cladding is set to balloon, with the German cladding manufacturer lobbing cross-claims against nine different parties.
A judge has denied a law firm’s bid to stay a rival’s closed shareholder class action against construction giant Boral but warned courts must be alive to the potential for conflicts where lawyers stand to reap “very significant financial awards” from class action proceedings.
Four executives of the failed Arrium have named auditor KPMG as a “concurrent wrongdoer” in defending a shareholder class action over a $754 million capital raising two years prior to the mining and steel giant’s $2 billion collapse.
Two shareholder class actions against sandalwood producer Quintis that reached an in principle settlement over a year ago are moving forward following a protracted dispute over insurance, with the lead applicants getting approval to file proposed amended pleadings.
After winning a three-way contest to lead a shareholder class action against construction giant Boral, Maurice Blackburn is seeking to stay a competing class action by Phi Finney McDonald that was allowed to continue as a closed class action.
The High Court has declined to hear a case that challenges the power of judges to make common fund orders at the close of litigation, a challenge the Federal Court had labelled “hypothetical”.