Edward Batrouney

On the first day of trial in parallel class actions and regulatory proceedings, the Fair Work Ombudsman panned the payment systems adopted by Woolworths and Coles for salaried managers, saying they were “entirely foreign” to the industrial award and that the supermarket giants had “no meaningful proper records” for overtime. 

The wife of a billionaire developer targeted in a $272 million proceeding by the Australian Taxation Office has lost a bid for suppression orders over the affidavits of a tax official she said would cause the couple to suffer reputational and commercial harm.

Law firms Shine Lawyers and Phi Finney McDonald have won a contest to jointly run a class action against embattled tech company Nuix, with rival Banton Group losing out on its “opaque” funding agreement.

Shareholders in a class action against Arrium and KPMG are fighting an $8 million security for costs order sought by former directors of the failed steel giant, who say they should not be forced to defend the case “on a shoestring.”

Shine and Phi Finney McDonald’s fallback plan to cooperatively run a class action against Nuix has come under fire, with the technology company urging the court to make the two firms compete against one another for sole carriage.

A judge has approved a 40 per cent group costs order for the law firm that’s running a class action against KPMG and former directors of collapsed mining company Arrium, the highest approved since the state began allowing lawyers to earn a cut of class action awards.

A funder that’s helping foot the bill in a class action against Arrium’s former directors and KPMG may withdraw support if the law firm that’s running it is not granted an order awarding it 40 per cent of any award or settlement.

Shareholders in a class action against failed steel giant Arrium and KPMG are seeking an unredacted version of an audit file by KPMG to probe the accounting giant’s handling of the steel producer’s financial statements before its collapse in April 2016.

Three law firms and a consultancy are fighting a bid by defunct financial advisor Dover Financial to bring negligence claims against two lawyers over a so-called client protection policy found to be “an exercise in Orwellian doublespeak”.

Two law firms accused of providing negligent advice to Dover Financial over a so-called client protection policy found to be “highly misleading” have argued the defunct financial advisor should not be able to recover the $1.2 million penalty it was ordered to pay.