Companies

A judge has referred to an appeals court the question of whether a group costs order can "travel", as KPMG continues to push to transfer a shareholder class action over the collapse of mining company Arrium to New South Wales.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has urged the Full Court to toss ASIC's challenge to a decision dismissing its conflicted remuneration case over the bank’s sale of its Essential Super product, saying the appeal suffered from “fatal” flaws.

The Transport Workers Union has predicted wide-reaching consequences for workplace rights if Qantas succeeds in its High Court appeal of a finding that it breached the Fair Work Act when it outsourced ground crew work during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A law firm running underpayments class actions against Coles and Woolworths has sought orders forcing them to hand over contact details for key workers in the Fair Work Ombudsman’s parallel cases, which the supermarket giants lashed as likely to “cause chaos” in the proceedings.

Dozens of Macquarie advisers who previously won a $330,000 payday against the bank have been ordered back to court for a rehearing of their long-running case over employment entitlements.

Sixteen law firms and accounting firms have thrown their hat in the ring to administer a $300 million settlement in two class actions against Johnson & Johnson over pelvic mesh devices that injured thousands of women.

Pitcher Partners has failed to stay a Federal Court suit alleging the accounting firm failed to properly advise former Zap Fitness owner Bective Enterprises on a troubled share buy-back scheme, in light of a Supreme Court bid by another key player to shut the case down.

The High Court killed off all common fund orders, not just the kind sought at the start of a class action, a judge has said as he cut in half the payout for a litigation funder bankrolling two franchisee class actions against 7-Eleven.

A judge has blessed a law firm’s $16.6 million legal bill for running two franchisee class actions against 7-Eleven despite a contradictor’s argument that it had a “troubling” practice of deferring its fees to benefit the funder that bankrolled the cases. 

The applicants in a shareholder class action against KPMG and former directors of defunct mining company CuDeco might press for clarity on the question of common fund orders in light of a ruling Tuesday morning that further split the Federal Court on the issue.