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.
The High Court has rejected Volkswagen’s special leave application to challenge a record $125 million penalty for selling cars with a defeat device that allowed them to cheat on emissions tests.
Shareholders of the collapsed Babcock & Brown have failed in their challenge to a ruling tossing their cases for damages for disclosure breaches during the global financial crisis, with an appeals court finding the investors had not shown the breaches caused any loss.
Volkswagen has asked the High Court to throw out a a landmark $125 million penalty over its emissions cheating scandal, the highest ever handed down in Australia for consumer law violations.
Kraft has agreed to pay Bega $9.25 million as part of a settlement resolving a long-running battle over peanut butter trade dress rights, after the US consumer goods giant exhausted all its options for appealing a ruling that found Bega had acquired the rights to the trade dress.
A class action trial against Volkswagen over recalled Takata airbags has kicked off, with a lawyer for the car giant denying the airbags carried a safety risk and attacking as “quite absurd” the sought-after damages of 30 percent of the initial price tag of affected cars.
Volkswagen has lost its challenge to a landmark $125 million Dieselgate penalty handed down by a judge who lambasted a $75 million fine proposed by the ACCC as “manifestly inadequate”, in what ACCC chair Rod Sims told Lawyerly was a “turning point” for the regulator to push for higher fines.
The Full Federal Court has tossed an appeal by Treasury Wine Estates claiming that Maurice Blackburn and barrister Guy Donnellan breached their obligations in preparing the pleadings in a current shareholder class action against the global winemaker.
Treasury Wine Estates has accused plaintiffs law firm Maurice Blackburn and barrister Guy Donnellan of “taking advantage” of their privileged position by using evidence discovered in a settled class action to file a second case against the wine maker.
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.