Two rulings Friday keeping alive the common fund order are a ringing endorsement by the courts of the important role that litigation funders play in class actions, experts say, and have paved the way for more funded post-Hayne consumer litigation against banks and other financial services firms this year.
Common fund orders in class actions are legal and not unconstitutional, six judges found Friday after a history-making joint sitting of two appeals courts.
A serviced apartments provider has discontinued its appeal of a ruling that blocked it from trade marking the phrase “Waldorf Apartment”, after Hilton Worldwide — which owns New York’s iconic Waldorf Astoria hotel – opposed the move.
Otsuka Pharmaceuticals and Bristol Myers-Squibb can retain their defences in an ongoing patent dispute over antipsychotic drug Abilify, after the Federal Court dismissed a strike out bid by the Commonwealth of Australia over the allegedly “inconsistent” pleadings.
Westpac-owned mortgage lender RAMS Financial Services breached a franchise agreement by failing to supply a Brisbane-based franchisee with information about nearby broker-originated customers, a judge has found.
Judgments in two appeals challenging the legality of common fund orders issued by courts in class actions will be handed down this week, and the rulings could have a profound effect on how class actions are run by lawyers and their funders in the future.
Unilever is not ready to put its long-running consumer case against competitor Beiersdorf to rest, filing a challenge to a ruling that Beiersdorf did not make misleading claims about its Nivea clinical strength deodorant products.
A judge has reprimanded CIMIC Group’s preparations to defend a class action against it, saying a late attempt to file critical evidence was a sign something “pretty horrible” had gone on behind the scenes.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has appealed a ruling that two Westpac units did not provide personal financial advice as part of a campaign encouraging customers to roll over external superannuation accounts.
Pharmaceutical giant Wyeth has shot down arguments by rival Merck Sharp & Dohme that its Prevnar 13 vaccine lacked inventiveness, saying during the closing submissions of a high-stakes patent trial that up until it developed the top-selling shot scientists thought there was a “ceiling” of 11 types of pneumococcal bacteria that could be included in a single vaccine.