The cracks that led to the evacuation of Sydney’s Opal Tower and threats of litigation have been blamed on design and construction issues, but the building is structurally sound and not in danger of collapse, according to an interim report commissioned by the NSW Government.
The ACCC does not need to prove Volkswagen knew about the diesel emissions software at the heart of its action against the car giant — that’s just a factor that will magnify penalties in the case, the regulator has told a court.
From a record-setting funder’s cut to the first call for ‘“proportionality”, last year saw a number of groundbreaking judgments approving class action settlements worth more than half a billion dollars. Here are the 10 biggest settlements of 2018, and the law firms and funders that negotiated them.
Two law firms have launched formal investigations into possible class actions over Sydney’s defective Opal Tower, inviting owners of units in the “crumbling” building to register their interest in joining legal proceedings.
A judge who signed off on a contested $36.5 million settlement to resolve a $1 billion class action against Slater & Gordon has explained his reasons a year later, saying the “unusual” deal flowed from the law firm’s “dire financial situation”.
The former CEO of Radio Rentals, James Marshall, has been dragged into a consumer class action alleging he knew the home goods rental company pushed misleading leases onto vulnerable consumers.
Last year was an exciting one for class action lawyers, with monumental court decisions on competing cases, cross-jurisdictional spats, proportionality in settlements and the power of judges to decide how a recovery is distributed. Here, top class action litigators tell us what the most significant rulings of 2018 were and why the decisions will continue to matter this year.
Treasury Wine Estates can’t claim its legal costs in defending against two stayed shareholder class actions because the terms of a settlement in a third class action barred the company from recovering anything from group members in related cases, a court has heard.
A judge has chosen a winner in a battle of law firms vying to run a massive shareholder class action against BHP over the fatal collapse of a dam at its Brazilian mine, saying the funding arrangement behind the successful case would best serve class members.
A judge looked dimly Monday on a pitch by baby food maker Bellamy’s to limit to $4.5 million the costs incurred by the law firms leading joint class actions against the company, saying the request was “very ambitious”.