A judge overseeing a shareholder class action against collapsed engineering group RCR Tomlinson has said goodbye to the common fund order in the case while welcoming last year’s High Court decision preventing these orders from being made at the early stage in class actions.
The judge who last month approved a $29 million settlement in a consumer class action against Radio Rentals has held that courts have power to order part of a settlement sum to go to charitable causes where distributing the funds to group members is too hard or impossible.
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.
A judge has given his seal of approval to a $29 million settlement that resolves a class action over Radio Rentals’ Rent, Try, $1 Buy scheme alleging customers were kept in the dark about the true cost of their rentals.
Shareholders have appealed a ruling that found a “serious problem” with market-based causation and dismissed three cases against the liquidator of failed global financial services firm Babcock & Brown.
A judge has dismissed three proceedings by shareholders against the liquidator of failed global financial services firm Babcock & Brown, in a finding that highlights “serious problems” with market-based causation and may have ramifications for securities class actions.
After being flooded with phone calls by class members wanting a share of a recent $16.4 million settlement with Cash Converters, law firm Maurice Blackburn will implement an automated message system to handle queries from 164,000 group members in the settled class action against Radio Rentals.
Pharmaceutical company Generic Health has told the Federal Court that, on advice from their solicitors, Otsuka and Bristol-Myers Squibb “deliberately” chose not to disclose their reasons for an admission in a long-running patent case over the anti-psychotic drug Abilify, which they are now seeking to withdraw.
Otsuka Pharmaceuticals and Bristol Myers-Squibb are seeking to withdraw admissions in patent litigation against Generic Health over anti-psychotic drug Abilify, following a landmark ruling last year against Wyeth that clarified the issue of compensation under the usual undertaking for damages in pharmaceutical patent cases.
The $29 million settlement in the Radio Rentals ‘Rent, Try, $1 Buy’ class action is back on track after concerns by former CEO James Marshall about uncertainty in the deed of settlement were resolved.