Jennifer Findlay

Suncorp subsidiary AAI has asked a court to order soft class closure in a group proceeding over allegedly worthless insurance, saying it was “passing strange” that over 200,000 group members “don’t know they’re even group members” three years into the case. 

It’s a case of déjà vu in a class action against engineering services company Worley, with shareholders heading back to the appeals court after losing a second trial in their drawn out fight over disclosure breaches.

A judge has signed off on a 27.5 per cent group costs order in a consolidated shareholder class action against Medibank over a cyberattack that affected 10 million customers, noting the “significant risk” taken on by the two plaintiff law firms running the action. 

A shareholder class action against livestock exporter Wellard over a profit downgrade following its $300 million initial public offering in 2015 has settled for $23 million. 

A judge has discontinued a class action by Victorian councils against insurer JLT Risk Solutions, but has departed from the decisions of two other judges by ruling the suspension of the time limit for bringing the councils’ claims will immediately be lifted. 

Noumi has largely lost its bid to shield from a class action parts of its inhouse counsel’s evidence supporting a privilege claim over 3,000 documents seen by Ashurst and PricewaterhouseCoopers during an investigation into the company’s financial position.

Worley contravened the Corporations Act a decade ago when it failed to correct 2014 earnings guidance for several months, but shareholders in a long-running class action against the engineering services company have failed to prove the breach caused any loss, a judge has found.

A judge has signed off on almost $7.5 million in fees billed by the law firm behind the pelvic mesh class action against Boston Scientific, eight months after he approved the device maker’s $105 million settlement.

The judge who rewarded the law firm with the lowest ever GCO proposal with carriage of an $80 million class action this week noted the competitive forces that shaped a “very good deal for group members,” but competition has its downsides, experts say.

The winning, 14 per cent contingency fee proposal by Slater & Gordon in a fight to run a class action against Star Entertainment was not driven by a desire to prevail in the contest and buy market share but was the product of a “reasoned decision” that took into account the law firm’s practice as a whole, a judge has found.