The son of Banksia class action funder Mark Elliott, who has been accused of complicity in a fraudulent scheme to maximise the profits of the lawyers in the case, was young and inexperienced and didn’t know his father’s conduct was wrong, his barrister has told a court.
The NSW Court of Appeal has passed on the question of whether a judge can make a common fund order when a class action settles to ensure a certain return to litigation funders, but the issue is not going away, whatever the Federal Court’s decision in a parallel case.
A routine practice by the funder behind the scandal-ridden Banksia class action of deleting emails, documented in a letter by his solicitors just days before his death, isn’t consistent with the electronic record maintained in another class action in which he was involved, a court overseeing a trial in the case has heard.
Westpac has reached settlements in two separate US class actions over the bank’s trading activity in the bank bill swap rate market and disclosures in relation to its compliance with Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.
A judge has raised doubts about claims of loss and damage in a class action by members of superannuation funds operated by NAB units MLC and NULIS over alleged MySuper mismanagement, as he determines a challenge to whether the case was validly brought as a class action.
Facing an uphill battle to win approval for a $1.9 million settlement in a sham contracting class action against fundraiser Appco Group, a lawyer for the case has told a court there is no money left to pursue.
Federal Court Justices Jacqueline Gleeson and Simon Steward are safe and steady appointments to the High Court that are unlikely to disrupt the current culture of the bench and do nothing to assuage concerns about the opacity of the selection process.
The Morrison government has picked Federal Court Justices Simon Steward and Jacqueline Gleeson to fill the impending vacancies on the High Court.
The High Court majority’s reasoning in the decision nixing common fund orders at an early stage of a class action leads “inexorably and inevitably” to the conclusion that there is no power to make such an order at any time in a proceeding, counsel for 7-Eleven has told an appeals court.
The operator of the Stock Swami Twitter handle has responded to a defamation case brought by mining entrepreneur Tolga Kumova, saying a reasonable reader would not consider his tweets a reliable source of factual information about the businessman.