A Marshall Islands-based binary options trader has been hit with a $1.8 million penalty after a judge found it engaged in the “deliberate deception of vulnerable people”.
US food giant Kraft-Heinz wants the High Court to hear its intellectual property stoush with Bega after twice losing the battle over the right to use its peanut butter trade dress in Australia.
A judge has found that the High Court’s landmark ruling last year blocking common fund orders in the early stages of a class action also barred them from being made at the conclusion of a proceeding, departing from several recent rulings on common fund orders.
A judge has made a common fund order in approving a $3 million settlement in a class action against mortgage lending and investment company RMBL, the first common fund order granted since the High Court shot down these orders in the early stages of class actions.
A decision this week rejecting a proposed common fund order at the settlement approval stage of a class action against teleco Vocus has dashed the hopes of litigation funders that a recent High Court ruling would not foreclose on judges using discretion at the end of a case and will cement a return to bookbuilding and a focus on shareholder class actions by institutional investors.
A judge has declined to make a common fund order in approving a $35 million settlement in a shareholder class action against telecommunications firm Vocus Group, resulting in a reduced payout for the funders that backed the case.
Directed Electronics has slammed a decision by one of its former managers to switch lawyers in the middle of a trial over alleged corporate theft, saying the move had a “tactical flavour”.
The judge presiding over the settlement approval hearing in a shareholder class action against telecommunications company Vocus Group has questioned whether the High Court’s recent ruling striking down common fund orders at the outset of class actions would allow him to make such an order at settlement.
Kraft has lost an appeal in its high-stakes legal battle against Bega over the right to use its distinctive peanut butter trade dress in Australia.
BHP has failed in a bid to shut down a class action over the Fundao dam failure pending criminal proceedings in Brazil, with a judge ruling the mining giant would not be prejudiced if the case proceeded for now.