An unprecedented joint-sitting of two appeals courts will this week hear a constitutional challenge to the power of judges to make so-called common fund orders, a challenge that could have significant ramifications for class actions even if they don’t fall foul of the ‘vibe of the thing’.
A class action against Ethicon over allegedly faulty pelvic mesh implants wants introduce confidential evidence from prior settlement negotiations as it attempts to shut down the medical device maker’s class closure application.
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.
The applicants in a class action over exposure to allegedly toxic foam used on a government military base have struck back at the Commonwealth of Australia’s argument that their claims were filed too late.
A challenge to the legality of common fund orders, an appeal to the High Court over the power of judges to stay competing cases, one of the first judgments in a shareholder class action and reform proposals promise to make 2019 another action-packed year in class actions. Here, experts give their predictions for the class action landscape this year.
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.
Johnson & Johnson unit Ethicon is seeking a class closure order in the pelvic mesh class action, as the company prepares to enter mediation.
And then there were four. Plaintiffs law firm Slater & Gordon wants to consolidate its AMP shareholder class action with Maurice Blackburn’s case and hand over the reins to its rival, a deal signed the day the Full Federal Court affirmed the power of judges to shut down competing class actions.
The showdown between five law firms vying to lead a class action over the AMP fees for no service scandal kicked off in the NSW Supreme Court Thursday with counsel for one case saying the contest, although costly and consuming, would ultimately be a win for all class action participants.