Kate Burke

Almost 7,000 taxi drivers who did not sign up to two class actions against Uber by the deadline are asking the court for a cut of a $272 million settlement, with a judge questioning what she “unleashed” when sending out the notice of settlement. 

Class action settlement approval hearings are not a time for the court to second guess a law firm’s contingency fee as set down in a group costs order, a judge has found, but the question of proportionality is still key, and evidence of a firm’s return on investment and hourly fees may be relevant to the final decision.

A judge has signed off on the first-ever settlement allowing a law firm to earn a contingency fee, approving a $12.8 million cut for Slater & Gordon in a shareholder class action against G8 Education.

After leading the first in a series of class actions by thousands of junior doctors to victory at trial, the applicant in a landmark wage case against Peninsula Health has told a judge the penalty against the Victorian hospital operator must send a clear message.

In the first-ever settlement approval hearing involving a group costs order, a contradictor has argued that Slater & Gordon should have provided the court with more information on legal costs and internal rate of return as part of its bid for a $12.8 million contingency fee.

Google has slammed Fortnite game maker Epic Games’ landmark competition case against it as “contrary to commercial reality”, saying its competition with rival tech giant Apple means it is no monopolist.

In a landmark competition case, Apple has told the Federal Court that Epic Games and other developers should not be allowed to “freeride” on the resources and user base the tech giant has “spent many billions” to develop. 

Epic Games has taken aim at Google for the “untruthful evidence” of its witnesses in the game maker’s competition case against the tech giant, as well as its failure to call senior executives to the stand to defend itself. 

Video game maker Epic Games has attacked as “entirely contrived” the defence by Apple in closing submissions in a Federal Court trial of its landmark competition case, pointing to the tech giant’s lack of evidence, including from CEO Tim Cook.

Epic Games’ case alleging Google ran its Play Store anti-competitively is “significantly more ambitious” than the Fortnite game maker’s claims against Apple, according to the search giant, which says its restraints are “more flexible and less draconian” than the iPhone maker’s.