A judge has signed off on a settlement of a long-running class action against Westpac unit BankSA, and has ruled the law firm that brought the case has an equitable right to unpaid legal costs for investigating the case before it found a funder.
ANZ has rejected allegations by the financial regulator that $35 million in fees charged to customers for periodical payments between accounts was unlawful, saying the regulator’s case extended the scope of false and misleading representation claims.
The litigation funder bankrolling a new class action against Toyota over allegedly faulty filters in its diesel models is looking to earn a step-up commission of between 20 and 30 percent of any recovery in the case.
A landmark ruling has found judges have the power to order security against litigation funders backing Fair Work class actions, in a decision that could change the landscape of representative proceedings.
After being flooded with phone calls by class members wanting a share of a recent $16.4 million settlement with Cash Converters, law firm Maurice Blackburn will implement an automated message system to handle queries from 164,000 group members in the settled class action against Radio Rentals.
A failed challenge by baby food maker Bellamy’s Australia to a decision rejecting its application to limit legal costs in two class actions was “not strong”, but was not so unreasonable as to put them on the hook for indemnity costs, the Full Federal Court has ruled.
Comments made by the director of three firms accused of pushing life insurance onto vulnerable consumers during the banking royal commission may come back to haunt him in a civil penalties proceeding brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
The hearing for a class action against National Australia Bank over allegedly worthless credit card insurance will focus on whether the bank’s allegedly unconscionable behaviour in selling these policies was systemic or confined to individual cases.
A judge has given the thumbs up to AMP’s new program to identify and compensate victims of so-called insurance churning by its financial planning arm after inadequacies were revealed in the original scheme.
The judge overseeing the Ethicon pelvic mesh class action has flagged serious public policy concerns stemming from class identification problems, amid fears that “poorer” patients in the public health system would be less likely to be notified of their rights compared to those in the private system.