The power of courts to choose a single winner from a contest of competing class actions is not the likely target of the High Court in taking up a challenge to last year’s beauty parade of shareholder proceedings against AMP, but the analysis behind the decision to award Maurice Blackburn the prize could face scrutiny, experts say.
The second of two class actions brought against Westpac over alleged anti-money laundering breaches has been denied discovery of what the bank claims are commercially sensitive documents until the law firms behind the class actions work out how their competing cases will proceed.
The High Court has agreed to weigh in on a decision last year to pick Maurice Blackburn’s case as the winner of a beauty parade of shareholder class actions against AMP over the wealth manager’s controversial fees for no service.
Westpac has been hit with another class action over alleged anti-money laundering breaches, teeing up a high-stakes beauty parade over which firm will lead the class action against the bank.
An individual claimant accusing AMP Financial Planning of ignoring multiple attempts to gain remediation for alleged insurance re-writing conduct was granted permission to voice his displeasure in court, while ASIC and AMP grapple with the details of a remediation program for insurance churn victims.
The Federal Court has imposed a penalty of almost $5.2 million on AMP Financial Planning after finding it was “reckless” in its ālamentable failureā to properly respond to a now banned adviser who was churning life insurance for higher commissions.
Westpac is now facing at least eight class actions in various US courts seeking $200 million from the bank for allegedly failing to alert shareholders to violations of anti-money laundering laws.
A judge overseeing the first of what could be many shareholder class actions over Westpac’s anti-money laundering breaches — brought by class action specialists Phi Finney McDonald — has given other law firms a three-week deadline to notify the court if they plan to file competing proceedings.
A judge has consolidated competing shareholder class actions against builder Lendlease brought by rival plaintiffs law firms, but has rejected the firms’ bid to jointly run the litigation and says one of them must go.
A challenge by Quinn Emanuel to a NSW Supreme Court decision staying its shareholder class action against AMP has been unanimously dismissed by the Court of Appeal, which found the class action beauty contest was not decided in error and that subsequently filed representative proceedings were not an abuse of process.