A litigation funder has abandoned its case seeking to prevent counsel retained by the lead applicant in the settled Montara oil spill class action from providing independent legal advice.
With the passage of the Respect@Work and Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bills before Christmas this year, the Federal Government will have done more to make workplaces fairer and safer for women than years of platitudes from their predecessors, says Maurice Blackburn’s Mackenzie Wakefield and Patrick Turner.
The funder bankrolling the settled class action against oil exploration company PTTEP wants a court-ordered injunction against a barrister to prevent him from giving independent legal advice to the lead applicant about his claim.
A judge overseeing the Montara oil spill class action has found the Federal Court’s broad discretion under the class action regime is “outflanked” by the need to give group members a chance to opt out. But resolving that question on Thursday — which has divided the courts — caused a further wrinkle ahead of a hearing to weigh a settlement in the case.
The Albanese government has removed provisions from sex harassment legislation that passed the senate on Friday which would have forced parties to bear their own costs in harassment litigation, after dozens of lawyers expressed “deep concern”.
A judge has questioned a tiered contingency fee arrangement in a proposed group costs order by the law firm running a shareholder class action against Crown, asking whether the lower-end percentages were “meaningless”.
Already facing one Australian class action for cheating on diesel emissions tests, Toyota unit Hino is the subject of a fresh class action probe announced Tuesday.
In one of the year’s biggest class action settlements, PTTEP Australasia has agreed to pay $192.5 million to settle a representative action over a 2009 oil spill that affected 15,000 Indonesian seaweed farmers.
Sydney advisory and accounting firm Bentleys has been hit with a lawsuit by a former HR adviser alleging sexual assault, harassment and “exhibitionist and shocking behaviour” by a senior executive which left her with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Apple has foreshadowed a challenge in the event two law firms seek to work together on a consolidated class action that alleges both Apple and Google engaged in anti-competitive conduct in operating their app stores.