New requirements that funded class actions be run as managed investment schemes will throw up myriad new questions for the courts, with lawyers predicting novel challenges by defendants and group members and an altered landscape for competing class actions.
An ancient history academic and lawyer has filed a class action against the federal government, claiming he and other postgraduate research candidates were underpaid by major Australian universities.
A Victoria Supreme Court judge will hear the second ever application for a group costs order in a shareholder class action against G8 Education, saying she hoped to deal with the bid in a “straightforward way”.
While a first test case in NSW rejected insurers’ interpretation of infectious disease exclusions in COVID-19 business interruption policies, potentially putting the industry on the hook for billions of dollars in claims, QBE says the law is on its side in Victoria.
A judge has refused a bid by accounting firms Pitcher Partners and EY to access share trading data of unregistered group members in a securities class action over advice to Slater & Gordon, despite claims upcoming mediation will be “pointless” without the information.
A judge has rejected an application by the plaintiffs in two class actions against Freedom Foods and Deloitte to run their cases side-by-side, but said she would have granted a bid to consolidate the proceedings had that been sought.
Supermarket giant Woolworths has denied the Fair Work Ombudsman is entitled to seek compensation for its underpayment of staff, saying its $330 million remediation to affected employees fully answers the regulator’s case.
Despite claims the $98 million settlement did not warrant a contradictor’s scrutiny, a judge has appointed a contradictor to represent the interests of group members in franchisee class actions against 7-Eleven as he weighs the deal.
Recent changes to the law requiring funded class actions to be registered as managed investment schemes have complicated the question of how best to resolve the multiplicity issue in two class actions brought against Freedom Foods and Deloitte.
Avant Insurance has lost a bid to pause an order that it pay $371,000 in the legal costs of a surgeon facing a class action by breast implant patients of defunct clinic the Cosmetic Institute while the insurer’s appeal is pending.