Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting has failed to persuade a court to hold an expanded separate trial on the alleged wrongdoing of the mining magnate in a spat over the Hope Downs iron ore mine, with a judge finding the proposal could extend the already ten-year legal battle.
Water supplier and dam operator Seqwater has won its high-stakes challenge to a ruling finding it liable for the 2011 Queensland floods and sticking it with half the damages owed to thousands of class action members.
Dam operator Seqwater will find out this week if its decision not to settle with group members in a class action over the 2011 Queensland floods has paid off.
Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting has avoided a discovery order that would cost an estimated $3 million to comply with, with a judge instead ordering that limited discovery be given to two Rinehart children in an ongoing family dispute over titles for the Hope Down iron ore mine.
A Victoria Supreme Court judge weighing for the first time an application by a law firm for a percentage cut of recoveries in class actions has been told to reject the bid because group members would fare better under the firm’s current no win, no fee funding arrangement.
A judge has awarded four sample group members in the Queensland floods class action $1.28 million in compensation, finding that charitable payments did not affect the amount of interest payable on the damages they are owed.
A $440 million settlement by the State of Queensland and dam operator Sunwater resolving a class action over the 2011 Queensland floods has been approved by a NSW judge.
The judge overseeing the first ever bid for a group costs order in a class action that will give the plaintiff’s law firm a percentage cut of the proceeds has urged the firm to rethink characterising its own solicitor as an expert.
The High Court has rejected special leave applications by mining magnate Gina Rinehart to appeal a ruling which only partially stayed a legal dispute over ownership rights and royalties relating to the Rinehart family-owned Hope Downs iron ore mine, with one judge calling the mining magnate’s arguments a “tortured articulation” and “very odd”.
The law firm behind a long-running class action over the 2011 floods in Queensland which reached a $440 million partial settlement last month has estimated that its legal bill to date totals around $60 million.