Kate Burke

The judge overseeing class actions against Uber has approved a $271.8 million settlement, which includes an $82 million deduction for the funder and $39 million for the firm that ran the cases.

A “time poor” judge’s extensive copying and pasting of submissions and an offensive tweet by senator Pauline Hanson were at the centre of the week’s biggest litigation wins.

A judge has ordered Victoria’s Peninsula Health to fork over $316,260 in penalties for failing to pay overtime to a junior doctor leading a class action, saying the hospital operator had a “highly irresponsible attitude”.

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.