A judge who will oversee an upcoming hearing for approval of a $20 million settlement in a class action against Optus contractor BSA has urged the parties to sever the funder’s commission and costs from the settlement to avoid delays in distribution to group members.
The ruling by the Full Federal Court that funded class actions are not managed investment schemes marks the end of an ill-considered regime enacted by the Morrison government to rein in class actions, but the debate over regulation of litigation funders is not over yet.
A victor remains to be crowned following a heated beauty parade between competing class actions against tech company Nuix, with two law firms facing criticism for their “cumbrous” consolidation proposal and a third firm copping flak for its “opaque” financials.
The law firm that’s running a shareholder class action against payment processing company EML will seek a group costs order for a 30 per cent cut of the suit’s proceeds.
A class action alleging the federal government contaminated Indigenous land with toxic firefighting foam has lost a challenge to a report by a scientist who declined to find that the foam could cause adverse health effects including immunosuppression and interfere with the efficacy of vaccines.
Technicians bringing a class action against BSA have argued it should double its first settlement payment using money raised in its 2022 prospectus after the telco contractor filed an “urgent” bid to ringfence capital raisings from the $20 million payout.
Telco contractor BSA has sued for declarations that cash raised from its 2022 prospectus cannot go towards a $20 million settlement reached with group members in a Shine Lawyers-led class action accusing the company of misclassifying its workforce of technicians as independent contractors.
Two law firms are set to work “hand in glove” in their proposed consolidated shareholder class actions against a2 Milk, with one senior barrister to be dropped as part of the “rationalisation” of the combined team.
QSuper has hit back at a class action over its alleged failure to notify members of changes to its premiums, saying group members failed to heed a “large font” notice of the changes and that any recoveries cannot be paid out to the law firm and funder running the litigation.
Settlement talks in a class action on behalf of women injured by allegedly defective pelvic mesh products have failed after Astora Health took a long-standing $27 million settlement offer off the table.