The High Court has granted applications by Westpac and BMW to weigh in on the validity of common fund orders made in class actions, a decision that could have major ramifications for the way representative proceedings are funded.
The Bank of Queensland has criticised a judgment which found the bank’s insurance policy left it on the hook for a $6 million settlement of a class action brought by investors in a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme by jailed fraudster Bradley Sherwin.
The High Court has sided with Gina Rinehart in relation to a dispute with two of her children over billions of dollars in iron ore mining assets, saying the matter should be heard in arbitration.
Lawyers for Deloitte were questioned by an appeals court Monday after arguing that the accounting giant’s partners had no access to the firm’s files, stored in a locked “litigation room”, and no power to hand them over to comply with discovery orders in a shareholder class action over the collapse of client Hastie Group.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn has fired its opening salvo in a high-stakes appeal of a judge’s decision rejecting its class action against BHP over the Brazilian dam failure, saying the ruling deprived group members of pocketing higher net returns on any recovery and of choosing a more experienced firm to run the case for them.
The battle over competing shareholder class actions against logistics tech company GetSwift is over, with the High Court rejecting a bid by one of the losing class action applicants to take another look at their case.
A director of an energy company who was kicked off the board for missing too many meetings has filed an appeal of a ruling dismissing his case over delays in complying with court requests after his lawyer from Maddocks withdrew from the case due to late payments.
An appeals court has sided with the tax office in a dispute against two corporate limited partnerships formed in the Cayman Islands, finding that ATO tax assessments issued for the sale of shares in global mining company Talison Lithium were valid and correct.
The Full Court has denied a bid by Deep Investments to vary orders dismissing its case against a solicitor and six others over $10 million in alleged share trading losses, saying this would amount to allowing the investment adviser to bring a different claim.
A Federal Court judge has questioned whether appeals from IP Australia should be allowed to proceed as hearings anew and not confined to the issues already run before the agency, in a ruling spanning 1,784 paragraphs that dismisses a challenge by chemical manufacturer SNF to a delegate’s decisions granting two mining patents to rival BASF.