The Federal Court is pushing ahead with an expedited trial in Icon Co’s case against Liberty Mutual Insurance and QBE over the Opal Tower disaster, just one month after originally scheduled, and it’s going online to do it.
Telstra has won its battle with Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane over a planned upgrade of its payphone network across Australia, with a judge ruling the teleco did not need planning permits to install the next generation, digital phone booths.
Companies and other defendants forked over big sums last year to settle more than 20 class actions, with a total of at least $734 million being paid out. Here are the top 10 class action settlements and the law firms and funders that negotiated them.
The National Australia Bank and insurer MLC have agreed to pay $49.5 million to settle a class action over allegedly worthless credit card insurance.
QBE Underwriting has defended its decision to deny insurance coverage to the builder of Sydney’s troubled Opal Tower development, claiming the cracking was not “major” and did not cause last year’s Christmas Eve evacuation.
The hearing for a class action against National Australia Bank over allegedly worthless credit card insurance will focus on whether the bank’s allegedly unconscionable behaviour in selling these policies was systemic or confined to individual cases.
A judge has ordered a group of banks facing a competition class action over alleged foreign exchange rate-rigging to hand over documents they produced as part of settlement agreements in class actions in the US and Canada.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is pushing back against an application by ANZ Bank to stay the regulator’s civil penalties case over disclosures related to a $2.5 billion equity capital raising while it defends against criminal charges related to the controversial share placement.
Maurice Blackburn has partly prevailed in an appeal of a judge’s decision to put the brakes on its shareholder class action against BHP while greenlighting a competing case brought by Phi Finney McDonald, with an appeals court ordering the rival law firms to negotiate a deal to consolidate their litigation.
Banking giant Westpac has criticised Maurice Blackburn for rushing to file the first class action in the wake of the banking royal commission’s scathing final report, saying the self-appointed leading class action firm should know how to properly commence proceedings.