The question of whether judges have the power to hear employment cases as representative proceedings is headed to the Full Court after a union raised the issue as it battles to have its underpayments case against McDonald’s run instead of a Shine Lawyers class action.
Two judges on the Full Court bench hearing arguments over power to make common fund orders when approving class action settlements appeared to tip their hand on Monday, chipping away at a High Court judgment that has sowed deep division.
The divisive issue of whether judges are empowered to make a common fund order to distribute the costs of a funding commission at the settlement stage of a class action is headed back to the Full Federal Court next week.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has lost its challenge to a decision that tossed its case alleging NSW Ports stymied competition when it signed a 50-year agreement with the state to privatise two ports.
Australia’s largest private health insurer Medibank has flagged an application to stay a landmark data breach class action filed in the Federal Court, as another law firm mulls a class action over the massive breach.
The question of power to make a common fund order at the end of a class action was no longer a hypothetical one and it was time to send the issue to the Full Federal Court. That’s what the 7-Eleven class action judge was told 15 months ago but he failed to heed the advice, resulting in a court deeply divided and funders clamouring for reform.
Requests by litigants for judges to disqualify themselves from presiding over cases were largely denied last year, in a raft of decisions containing lessons for litigants weighing up their own recusal bids in 2023.
In reasons for approving a $41 million deal to settle one of three shareholder class actions over Slater & Gordon’s acquisition of a UK firm and awarding the funder 28 per cent, a judge has challenged a persistent notion that the interests of litigation funders and group members are at odds.
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.
Automotive electronics company Directed Electronics has largely prevailed in a five-year-old lawsuit alleging a former manager misappropriated company information and reaped $3.6 million in commissions through a secret side agreement with South Korean giant Hanhwa.