A judge has granted discovery of up to 32,000 documents just months out from the Forge investor class action trial, as she blasted the insurance company respondents for wasting resources after they failed to comply with the court’s previous orders.
Maurice Blackburn has partly prevailed in an appeal of a judge’s decision to put the brakes on its shareholder class action against BHP while greenlighting a competing case brought by Phi Finney McDonald, with an appeals court ordering the rival law firms to negotiate a deal to consolidate their litigation.
Maurice Blackburn’s funding model rejected by a judge overseeing a beauty parade of class actions against BHP appeared structured to incentivise the firm to push up its legal fees, an appeals court said Monday on the first day of a high stakes hearing challenging a decision to shut down two of three competing cases against the mining giant.
A judge’s decision to pick Maurice Blackburn’s no win, no fee class action against AMP over three funded class actions puts the pressure on litigation funders, which will now face more competition from law firms prepared to go it alone, experts say. The ruling also shows the value courts place on funding arrangements that seek to maximise returns for class members, which means class action beauty parades are sure to get less ugly.
Maurice Blackburn’s shareholder class action against AMP — the only action not backed by a litigation funder — has been picked as the winner in a fierce battle of law firms vying to lead a high stakes case over the wealth manager’s fees for no service scandal.
A ruling by a judge deciding a four-way contest to run a shareholder class action against AMP is expected this week, a judgment significant not just because it is the first time a court in Australia has been asked to choose among so many competing representative cases.
UGL knew a loss for its Ichthys power project was “looming” as early as February 2014, according to amended pleadings in a shareholder class action, which claims the engineering firm should have forecast a loss of $129 million for the project.
Facebook and Instagram will defend against claims they misused their market power to block an Australian marketing startup from their platforms, saying the company – which sends scheduled social media posts for clients — had breached their terms of use.
Mining giant BHP has been hit with the biggest class action in UK history on behalf of over 235,000 Brazilians claiming more than AUS$7 billion in damages resulting from the disastrous Fundao dam collapse in 2015.
Lawyers for Deloitte were questioned by an appeals court Monday after arguing that the accounting giant’s partners had no access to the firm’s files, stored in a locked “litigation room”, and no power to hand them over to comply with discovery orders in a shareholder class action over the collapse of client Hastie Group.