The second of two class actions brought against Westpac over alleged anti-money laundering breaches has been denied discovery of what the bank claims are commercially sensitive documents until the law firms behind the class actions work out how their competing cases will proceed.
Grain handling group Viterra has been denied a post-hearing bid to reopen a lawsuit brought by Cargill Australia over its $420 million acquisition of Joe White, with a judge finding the application would lead to “substantial disruption and delay”.
The High Court has agreed to weigh in on a decision last year to pick Maurice Blackburn’s case as the winner of a beauty parade of shareholder class actions against AMP over the wealth manager’s controversial fees for no service.
Ford has lost its bid to delay an upcoming virtual trial in a class action over allegedly defective PowerShift transmissions, with a judge saying the parties must try to make a virtual trial work because the current “unsatisfactory” circumstances caused by the coronavirus pandemic could continue for a year or more.
A judge has refused to summarily dismiss a defamation case brought by a government worker against Twitter, Google and Yahoo over racist, homophobic, anti-Muslim and conspiratorial tweets resulting from an alleged identity theft.
The High Court has quashed a search warrant obtained by the Australian Federal Police and used to raid a News Corp journalist’s home, but did not go so far as to order the return or destruction of documents obtained in the raid.
Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram will call for a stay of a Federal Court competition lawsuit brought by an Australian social media startup as it seeks to arbitrate the matter under Californian law.
A Federal Court judge has praised an attempt by Shine Lawyer’s head of litigation to create an audio-visual opt out notice for its insurance class action against Westpac, but jokingly remarked that her performance would not win her any acting plaudits.
Arguing that the court should not be “baulking at problems that have the potential to occur”, counsel for a class action against Ford is pushing back against a bid by the car maker to put the brakes on an upcoming virtual trial the company says will be too difficult and costly.
A former general counsel who claims she was sacked from AMP after raising concerns about the company’s fees for no services conduct has mostly succeeded in her bid for further particulars of allegations made in the company’s defence, including a claim that she called “tantamount to extortion”.