Last year brought economic growth and success for law firms, but 2021 was not only marked with good news. A slew of law firms were dragged into litigation by disgruntled ex-clients, with some paying out millions of dollars to resolve lawsuits accusing them of giving bad advice.
The ACCC will seek a higher penalty against Employsure over misleading Google advertisements, after a judge found the consumer regulator’s proposed $5 million penalty was inappropriate and instead ordered the specialist workplace relations consultancy to pay $1 million.
A former head of medical at Sanofi-Aventis has sued the Australian branch of the pharmaceutical giant, claiming he was unfairly dismissed in a “‘sham redundancy” and faced discrimination because of his age and disabilities.
Three security officers who say they were traumatised by the fatal riots at Australia’s asylum seeker detention centre on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island have launched a negligence lawsuit against their former employer.
An Airbnb host’s claim for JobKeeper payments has been shot down, with a tribunal saying the accommodation of paying guests at one’s own home did not constitute a business.
If evidence were needed that courts are not rubber stamping class action settlements, the scrutiny of multi-million dollar agreements in 2021 is proof positive that judicial oversight of representative proceedings is robust.
Westpac is facing a lawsuit by a 67-year-old former manager, who alleges a colleague began a bullying campaign against him, including by asking him ‘When are you going to retire?’, after he complained that she was responsible for a backlog of declined insurance cases.
Accounting giant KPMG is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a former long-serving employee over “unnecessarily aggressive, belittling and disproportionate” emails allegedly attacking his professional integrity.
Technology giant Lenovo has been accused of taking adverse action against a compliance manager who complained of workplace bullying and harassment.
The Transport Workers Union has appealed a judge’s decision that compensation was a more appropriate remedy for 1,800 Qantas workers who had been denied the “matchless blessing” of a job than reinstatement.