Payouts in class actions in 2020 largely kept pace with the previous year despite the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, with companies and other defendants paying more than $696 million to settle class actions last year.
Shock jock Alan Jones has reached a settlement in his defamation lawsuit against SBS and The Feed presenter Alex Lee over a television segment that referred to him as someone who “spoke to the fears of every xenophobe and misogynist in the country”.
Conservative talkback host Alan Jones has filed a defamation suit against public broadcaster SBS over a “tribute” aired on ‘The Feed’ which labelled him as someone who “spoke to the fears of every xenophobe and misogynist in the country”.
A judge has approved a $7 million settlement in a class action against the directors of pharmaceutical company QRxPharma, only a third of which will go to group members, saying proportionality was not a basis for rejecting fees that were otherwise fair and reasonable.
The funder backing a shareholder class action against the directors of pharmaceutical firm QRxPharma will not seek to profit from a $7 million settlement in order to bring about a better return for group members, a judge has been told.
A former director of investment house Washington H. Soul Pattinson has won a damages payout of over $1.1 million after a court found that the ASX 100-listed company failed to pay her entitlements following termination of her employment without notice.
A court has ruled that a litigation funder backing an unsuccessful real estate lawsuit by two broke plaintiffs must cover the legal costs after finding that the funder’s goals in the case were “more to serve its own commercial and financial ends” than to assist its clients.
A liquidator who ‘provoked litigation’ must personally pay the costs of the proceedings brought by a creditor of defunct company Azmac because of his ‘unreasonable’ handling of the company’s liquidation, a court has found.
The judge who last month approved a $29 million settlement in a consumer class action against Radio Rentals has held that courts have power to order part of a settlement sum to go to charitable causes where distributing the funds to group members is too hard or impossible.
Running a law firm is not without risk, chief among them staring down a lawsuit by a client, an ex-partner or employee, even a rival firm. Last year, Australian firms faced numerous actions alleging everything from sex discrimination to negligence.