A ruling this week that rejected the first application for a group costs order in a class action because the applicants were better off with their existing no win, no fee arrangement was the right decision given the limits of the legislation, experts say.
Saying the interests of class action members “must be given primacy”, a judge has rejected the first bid for a group costs order in a class action since contingency fee legislation passed in Victoria.
Describing the federal government’s income-averaging debt collection program as a “shameful chapter”, a judge has approved a $112 million settlement in the Robodebt class action, saying the agreement was fair and reasonable.
A Victoria Supreme Court judge weighing for the first time an application by a law firm for a percentage cut of recoveries in class actions has been told to reject the bid because group members would fare better under the firm’s current no win, no fee funding arrangement.
The stage is set for a beauty parade of two shareholder class actions against Freedom Foods and Deloitte, and the judge overseeing the cases has embraced the recommendation of the High Court to appoint an independent barrister to represent group members in the contest.
A judge has refused to sign off on $13.8 million in fees sought by law firm Maurice Blackburn as part of a $44.5 million settlement in a class action against Woolworths, saying the amount was “intuitively out of the range” of what was a reasonable legal bill for the case.
A court-appointed contradictor has asked for changes to a $112 million settlement in the Robodebt class action against the federal government, saying it is unfair that some group members won’t receive financial compensation from the settlement, which had a “bigger set of losers” than normal.
A $38.4 million settlement in a shareholder class action against aged care provider Estia Health has been given the greenlight by a Federal Court judge, who also approved the funders’ recovery of after-the-event insurance, a decision that puts him at odds with some of his colleagues on the bench.
The judge overseeing the Robodebt class action has raised concerns about the fairness of a $112 million settlement in the case, which will provide no financial benefit to some group members and will extinguish their rights to make claims against the federal government.
A judge weighing a $38.4 million settlement in a shareholder class action against aged care provider Estia Health has been told that two NSW Court of Appeal judgments barring class closure were “plainly wrong”, but in deciding whether to lock group members out of the settlement the judge says he won’t need to grapple with the landmark rulings.