Maurice Blackburn has had a second crack at a group costs order in three class actions against banks over alleged flexible commission schemes after a judge in 2021 rejected what was then the first-ever application for a contingency fee.
In reasons for approving a $41 million deal to settle one of three shareholder class actions over Slater & Gordon’s acquisition of a UK firm and awarding the funder 28 per cent, a judge has challenged a persistent notion that the interests of litigation funders and group members are at odds.
A costs report in a settled class action against Woolworths that recommended almost $800,000 in legal fee deductions failed to wrestle with a key factor in weighing the proportionality of the costs, a judge has said.
Class action settlement sums reached new highs last year, with the ten largest agreements totalling almost $1 billion, almost half of which was secured by one plaintiff law firm.
A judge has signed off on a group costs order in class action against Allianz over add-on car insurance that will give plaintiff law firms Johnson Winter & Slattery and Maurice Blackburn no more than 25 per cent of any resolution in the case.
The High Court has dismissed an application by accounting giant KPMG to transfer a class action over the collapse of mining company Arrium from Victoria to NSW.
ANZ and Westpac have failed in their bid for a contradictor to weigh in on a contingency fee bid in two class actions, as the law firm that lost the first ever application for a group costs order tries again.
The former chief executive of Commonwealth Bank has told a court internal auditors raised issues with CBA’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing compliance four years before AUSTRAC took action that saw the bank’s share price plummet.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has argued that disclosing its money laundering failures before AUSTRAC brought proceedings would have misled the market, as the bank takes the rare move of defending a shareholder class action at trial.
While CBA’s defence to a shareholder class action argues the bank did not need to disclose money laundering failures because it doubted AUSTRAC would take legal action, communications show it was drafting a defence six months before proceedings started, a trial has heard.