The lead applicants in seven class actions against auto manufacturers over explosive Takata airbags have criticised the courts for losing their way in ensuring justice is done, in a landmark challenge to class closure orders made in the cases.
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.
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.Ā
A Federal Court judge has slapped Volkswagen with a record $125 million penalty over its emissions cheating scandal after expressing outrage at a āmanifestly inadequateā $75 million settlement agreement reached with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The applicants in a group of class actions over defective Takata airbags are pushing ahead with a challenge to the power of the NSW Supreme Court to issue class closure orders in the aftermath of a High Court decision shooting down common fund orders, a fight that could send the cases back to the High Court.Ā
The judge overseeing the settlement approval process in multiple class actions against Volkswagen over the diesel emissions scandal has criticised an application for a common fund order by the funder backing two Bannister Law-led lawsuits.
The judge overseeing seven class actions against some of the world’s largest car makers over defective Takata airbags has ordered that class closure take place in advance of mediation, saying it was “time…for commercial reality to bite”.
A judge is considering whether he can increase a record $75 million civil penalty settlement reached by Volkswagen and the ACCC over the dieselgate scandal, after saying the people of Australia would be āupsetā if they knew about some of the āoutrageousā terms to which the consumer watchdog had agreed.
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.
A judge has given the thumbs up to AMP’s new program to identify and compensate victims of so-called insurance churning by its financial planning arm after inadequacies were revealed in the original scheme.