Robert Pietriche

The judge hearing a bondholders class action against Virgin Australia has deferred the resolution of the airline’s cross-claim seeking seeking periodic payments from the class action to cover its costs under a contentious indemnity clause.

A bondholder class action against Virgin is heating up, with the airline filing a cross-claim seeking the court’s approval to demand periodic payments from the applicant to cover its costs under a contentious indemnity clause.

A judge overseeing a class action accusing Virgin Australia of failing to disclose its true financial position in a $324 million capital raising prospectus has joined a dozen insurers to the proceeding, which he said had “regrettably languished”.

A judge has approved a settlement with former directors of collapsed advisory firm Linchpin Capital under which insurer RiverStone will pay $6.3 million, which will be used to fund the investor class action’s claims against AIG.

On the first day of trial in parallel class actions and regulatory proceedings, the Fair Work Ombudsman panned the payment systems adopted by Woolworths and Coles for salaried managers, saying they were “entirely foreign” to the industrial award and that the supermarket giants had “no meaningful proper records” for overtime. 

A judge who eviscerated a prior bid by a law firm and funder to take home 60 per cent of a $5 million class action settlement with Tyro has allowed them to net half of the proceeds, questioning whether some of the costs amounted to a “complete breach” of legal professional duties.

Online trading company CMC Markets has succeeded in accessing advice given to class action members who are seeking to recover 10 years’ worth of “significant” losses incurred while trading risky financial products on its mobile and web-based platforms.

A judge has approved a $5 million class action settlement against payment processor Tyro over a service outage but has shredded the proposed funder payout and legal fees that would have comprised 60 per cent of the sum, calling the costs “outrageous”. 

The applicant in an investor class action over the collapse of advisory firm Linchpin Capital and Endeavour Securities has raised concerns about the authenticity of Linchpin’s business records, which it wants to put into evidence at trial in two months.

An investor class action has reached a settlement with four former directors of defunct Linchpin Capital, leaving only allegations against AIG Insurance, which is allegedly seeking to withdraw an admission that directors were insured under a D&O policy.