Retail

A Federal Court judge has pulled the plug on a bid by the Fair Work Ombudsman for an upcoming trial in wage cases against supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths to be livestreamed like other hearings of public interest in the court.

The High Court has agreed to hear the appeals of two former Dick Smith exes following judgments that awarded a total of $55 million in damages to NAB and the receivers of the defunct electronics retailer.

Retailers represented in a class action against Tyro over an EFTPOS outage will get 40 per cent of a settlement with the fintech after a funding commission and fees are deducted.

Discount retail chain The Reject Shop has become the latest Australian company to be stung with an underpayments class action.

A sacked Myer executive has brought Fair Work proceedings against her former employer, seeking over $700,000 in compensation after she was allegedly unfairly dismissed for complaining about a general manager’s "belittling" conduct. 

The fees of a class action firm found to have breached cost disclosure rules in running two underpayments class actions against supermarket chain Romeo's have been adjusted up, after $260,000 was initially cut from the bill by the Federal Court.

Department store David Jones and men's fashion label Politix have admitted underpaying more than 7,000 employees and will back-pay the workers $4 million in wages and superannuation.

United Petroleum has been hit with a class action on behalf of franchisees who allege they suffered loss when the petrol giant installed loss-making Pie Face stores at its franchise sites.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has filed court proceedings against the owner of Super Cheap Auto, Rebel Sport, Macpac, BCF and Ray’s Outdoors for allegedly underpaying thousands of employees across Australia.

A costs report in a settled class action against Woolworths that recommended almost $800,000 in legal fee deductions failed to wrestle with a key factor in weighing the proportionality of the costs, a judge has said.