Alexander Edwards

Worley contravened the Corporations Act a decade ago when it failed to correct 2014 earnings guidance for several months, but shareholders in a long-running class action against the engineering services company have failed to prove the breach caused any loss, a judge has found.

A judge has found that a lawsuit against the state of NSW over hundreds of allegedly illegal strip searches conducted by NSW police at music festivals over a six-year period should move forward as a class action.

The litigation funder that backed a class action brought on behalf of Indigenous workers seeking to recover unpaid wages wants a 20 per cent commission from the settlement. But it faces pushback from the government of Western Australia, which has agreed to pay group members up to $165 million.

The government of Western Australia has agreed to pay up to $180.4 million to settle a class action on behalf of First Nations workers who were paid little or nothing over a 36-year period.

A judge has warned the NSW government that the court does not make orders “subject to [its] internal policies” after the state failed to comply with orders to hand over documents in a class action over police strip searches.

A judge has declined to hear an interlocutory stoush about the scope of a shareholder class action against engineering company Worley before an upcoming trial, saying the case, which has been on foot since 2015 and was appealed to the High Court, needed “some finality”. 

A judge overseeing a class action by family members and deceased estates of the Northern Territory Stolen Generations, which settled for $50.45 million, has said the case was a “positive example” of representative actions.

A judge has criticised a bid by the NSW government to access seven months of messages relating to drugs by the lead plaintiff in a class action over allegedly illegal strip searches at a Byron Bay music festival, saying they seemed “wholly irrelevant” to the case. 

A judge has approved a $50.45 million settlement in a class action by family members and deceased estates of the Northern Territory Stolen Generations. He has also approved a 13 per cent funding commission by way of a common fund order, saying debates about CFOs had become “lost in the label”.

Shareholders have brought a class action in Australia against New Zealand-based Fletcher Building, alleging the company failed to disclose material information relating to its construction division.