Volkswagen has appealed a record $125 million penalty handed down over its emissions cheating scandal by a judge who criticised a $75 million settlement agreement with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as “manifestly inadequate”.
Engineering services company CIMIC will fork over $32.4 million to settle a shareholder class action, with group members expected to get 40 per cent of the settlement total if the court approves the requested legal costs and funder’s commission.
An ACCC investigator has come under fire from ANZ as the bank seeks to shoot holes in the criminal cartel action against it, with counsel for the bank accusing the regulator of “infecting” witness statements and erasing testimony that weakened its case.
With Victoria set to pass legislation permitting law firms to charge contingency fees, experts have raised fears of an exodus of class actions from other states and the federal system. But the Federal Court, which hears about two-thirds of Australia’s representative proceedings, is not likely to surrender easily.
The High Court’s recent ruling putting a stop to the practice of judges issuing common fund orders at the early stages of class action proceedings, while “not a good development”, wasn’t the end of the class action regime as we know it, a Federal Court judge has said.
A landmark ruling granting fintech Rokt’s application for a software patent has come under attack before the Full Federal Court, with the judges expressing skepticism about the invention’s patentability.
A key officer from the ACCC involved in interviewing JPMorgan bankers during a cartel investigation that led to criminal charges against ANZ and two investment banks has denied allegations that he acted improperly during the investigation.
An Adelaide lawyer has been awarded $750,000 in damages after suing a woman who gave him bad reviews on Google that sent 80 per cent of his clients packing.
A Melbourne-based craft brewery has had its ‘Urban Ale’ trade mark cancelled, with a judge finding other beer makers might want to use the words to describe their products and that cancelling the mark would be in the public interest.
A lawyer for Tasmanian state government owned ports company TasPorts has criticised the ACCC’s first-of-its kind case that alleges it is misusing its market power to stymie competition, saying it isn’t clear what the regulator wants the court to do.