A $100 million shareholder class action against supermarket giant Woolworths has settled for $44.5 million, a few days before a 15-day trial was set to begin.
Trial is set to begin February 2 in a $100 million shareholder class action against Woolworths over a February 2015 profit downgrade that allegedly led to a drop in the company’s share price.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has lost its appeal of a ruling that found Woolworths’ environmental claims for its ‘Select Eco’ line of compostable plates, bowls and cutlery were accurate, not false and misleading.
Woolworths has agreed to fast-track retail employee pay increases after a union hit the supermarket giant with a lawsuit this week.
Two leading independent supermarket groups are the latest retail giants to face possible class actions for alleged wage underpayments, in the wake of class actions lobbed against Woolworths and Coles.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has approved Coles’ planned acquisition of chilled meals supplier Jewel, saying the sale was better for competition than the liquidation of Jewel’s assets.
Supermarket giant Coles may be hit with a class action after it was revealed on Tuesday that the company owes staff in its supermarket and liquor businesses at least $20 million in pay.
Ashurst has become the latest law firm to be ensnared in the underpayments scandal affecting Australian businesses, with the firm admitting to underpaying a number of staff covered under the legal services award.
Woolworths is facing a class action alleging it underpaid workers to the tune of $620 million, more than double what the supermarket giant estimated when it disclosed the underpayments scandal last month.
The funder backing a shareholder class action against Woolworths wants a 35 percent slice of any settlement or judgment in the $100 million case, according to its agreement with the applicants.