A court has set aside former Federal Minister for Resources Keith Pitt’s decision to develop a nuclear waste facility in Napandee in South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, saying a fair-minded observer may have perceived that Pitt was biased in selecting the site over two other proposed locations.
The Full Court has rejected class action claims that the age pension discriminates against Indigenous Australians because of differences in life expectancy.
A judge has told a class action applicant alleging institutional racism targeting the Indigenous population of a remote NT community to clarify his case over the availability of interpreting services.
Discount retail chain The Reject Shop has become the latest Australian company to be stung with an underpayments class action.
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.
A judge has approved a $5.8 million settlement in an underpayments class action against convenience store chain On The Run despite what she said was the class action law firm’s “extraordinary” reason for reaching the deal.
Courts stepped up their scrutiny of class action settlements in 2022, with judges grappling with difficult issues such as funding commissions in employment cases and whether settlements, even those worth hundreds of millions of dollars, were fair to group members.
A judge has described as “extraordinary” a law firm’s argument that the court should approve a $5.8 million settlement in an underpayments class action against the On The Run convenience store chain partly because it ran out of funds to take the case to trial.
A judge has cut at least $170,000 from the fees sought by a law firm running a class action on behalf of Drakes Supermarkets store managers who were allegedly underpaid — the same firm that saw its fees reduced in two similar class actions.
Keeping up her scrutiny of fee disclosures by Adero Law in employment class actions launched in her court, a judge has questioned whether the law firm breached its fiduciary duty to the lead applicant in litigation against Drakes Supermarkets.