A $138 million class action settlement with IAG over alleged junk insurance will go ahead after a judge found he was “bereft” of power to vary his prior approval judgment and include late opt out bids by group members that threatened to derail the agreement last month.
The litigation funder that backed a dismissed employment class action against aviation service provider Airservices Australia has successfully argued that it should not bear the company’s costs of defending the case
The High Court has rejected special leave applications by mining magnate Gina Rinehart to appeal a ruling which only partially stayed a legal dispute over ownership rights and royalties relating to the Rinehart family-owned Hope Downs iron ore mine, with one judge calling the mining magnate’s arguments a “tortured articulation” and “very odd”.
A group of late opt out notices by group members in a class action over IAG insurance, who were egged on in part by a ‘corporate warfare’ campaign by claims management service Claimo, could result in IAG pulling the plug on a $138 million settlement.
Judges have power to manage competing class actions by picking a winner in a so-called beauty parade, the High Court has ruled, but there is no one size fits all approach to the decision, and the law firm that files first is not guaranteed the coveted prize.
The Victorian government will argue for summary dismissal of two class actions filed over the bungled COVID-19 hotel quarantine program said to be responsible for the state’s second pandemic wave last year.
The High Court has set a date for handing down its keenly anticipated judgment in a case that challenged the winner of a beauty contest of class actions against AMP, a decision expected to offer guidance on how courts should tackle the so-called multiplicity problem.
Embattled financial services firm Greensill Capital has lost an emergency bid for a temporary mandatory injunction that would have forced its insurer to renew trade credit policies covering $4.6 billion in client loans as it fights to avoid collapse.
Concerns behind criticism that courts aren’t equipped to assess a class action funder’s commission are exaggerated, and the fixing by judges of reasonable remuneration, at least in other cases, is nothing new, a Federal Court judge has said.
Payouts in class actions in 2020 largely kept pace with the previous year despite the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, with companies and other defendants paying more than $696 million to settle class actions last year.