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.
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.
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.
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.