A judge has signed off on a $16.5 million settlement of a shareholder class action against collapsed engineering and construction company Forge Group.
Deloitte chairman Tom Imbresi has defended a move by a firm partner to make off with the audit file of collapsed construction company Hastie after a court ordered it be produced to the applicant in a class action against the accounting giant.
Pizza chain Domino’s has been blasted for redactions in documents it has produced in a class action over worker pay, with a judge warning the franchisor that it could not act as “judge and jury” in deciding what information could be given to the applicant.
Two months after rejecting the deal because the litigation funder’s cut appeared excessive, a judge has approved a $42 million class action settlement with Murray Goulburn while the funder keeps up the fight over its commission.
The High Court’s ruling Wednesday that judges have no power to issue a common fund order in the initial phases of a class action does not bind them after a settlement has been reached, a Federal Court judge said Friday.
The end of the common fund order is a setback for class actions that will see a revival of the days of closed proceedings, costly bookbuilding, higher commission rates and the shelving of worthy but risky cases, experts say, and all eyes will now turn to state and federal governments to see how they respond to calls for legislative intervention.
More than a decade after the High Court ruled that third parties could finance legal proceedings in Australia, the court has issued another game changing decision that puts limits on what judges will do to help a litigation funder out. Here, Lawyerly gives you a quick guide to the key takeaways from Wednesday’s judgment.
Judges have no power to order all class action members to pay a proportion of a litigation funder’s commission out of their share of a settlement, the High Court has ruled in a landmark judgment that deals a huge defeat to litigation funders.
A judge has rejected a proposal to jointly hear argument for approval of settlements in two class actions against milk supplier Murray Goulburn, saying the issues in one case — led by the legal team under scrutiny for alleged professional misconduct in a separate class action — could be more complicated.
The High Court is poised this week to issue its judgment in a case challenging the validity of common fund orders in class actions, a ruling that could see litigation funding commission rates creep back up after hitting record lows.