Barristers

Four insurers have argued that class actions over alleged business interruption losses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic should be de-classed, with one insurer saying group members cannot “go behind” a Full Court decision denying coverage for certain policyholders.

A judge is considering the extraordinary step of ordering costs against basketball coach Shane Heal in his failed Fair Work case against the Sydney Flames, saying the case was “very much on the margin” of constituting an exception to the no-costs rule. 

The managing partner of a leading plaintiff law firm has agreed to drop his case against a Melbourne law firm, which he claimed failed to properly advise him on an agreement that barred him from selling his shares in Slater & Gordon before the firm’s share price plummeted in 2015. 

Keybridge Capital chief executive officer Nicholas Bolton has lost his appeal of a costs review panel decision that saddled him with a legal bill of $308,940 for work done by Atanaskovic Hartnell for his company in a dispute with Brookfield Multiplex.

Subcontractor EnerMech has won an appeal in its fight against Acciona over a $10 million progress payment for work on the Westconnex M4-M5 link, with an appeals court finding the question of whether EnerMech’s claim was a payment claim for construction work was a matter for an adjudicator, not the court.

Although carefully reasoned, last week’s landmark judgment by the Full Federal Court finding power to grant contingency fees to class action solicitors has placed the question of statutory authority to award settlement common fund orders on more unsteady ground than before, experts say.

Metal mining company Fortescue hired private investigators to spy on former employees who created green iron start-up Element Zero, sifting through their mail, taking photos of their children and following them to Kmart, a court has heard. 

In a win for ASIC, the Federal Court has found that non-bank lender Firstmac Limited breached the design and distribution obligations, introduced in 2021, by marketing a managed investment scheme that could be unsuitable for customers’ financial needs. 

HWL Ebsworth and a former capital partner have both appealed a ruling that found the partner was invalidly expelled in 2020 but that his partnership had been dissolved from the day he sued his former firm. 

A judge has declined to toss most of the claims brought against a crypto trading company by a former director, despite finding the director’s case “is not an easy one”.