Settlement

Five federal officers have dropped their defamation case against former ACT prosecutor Shane Drumgold over his complaint concerning their investigation into Brittany Higgins’ sexual assault claims against Bruce Lehrmann.

The lead applicant in a class action over the alleged unlawful detention of 240 Indonesian children and the Commonwealth are locked in a battle over the construction of a $27.5 million settlement reached last year.

A judge has approved a $40 million settlement in a shareholder class action against collapsed engineering firm RCR Tomlinson, with almost half of the settlement to go towards a funder’s commission and legal fees. 

The judge overseeing a consumer class action against wealth manager Colonial First State Investments has given the green light to a $100 million settlement, but questioned a $23.1 million cut to funder Augusta under a “strange” funding agreement.

A judge has approved a $25 million settlement in a class action against a group of surgeons who worked for the Cosmetic Institute, including a $8.9 million payout for the lawyers that ran the seven-year-old case, saying the deduction from the settlement was reasonable given the “very significant discount” applied to the legal bill.

Approving a settlement between insurers and group members in an investor class action against lender Axsesstoday, a judge has aired his frustration with expansive confidentiality provisions and deeds that “misapprehend the nature of the court’s role” in dealing with group members’ claims. 

ANZ has resolved a case brought by the bank’s former head of money markets, who claims he was fired for making complaints about sexual harassment by senior managers and false reporting to APRA.

SkyCity has agreed to pay $67 million to resolve AUSTRAC proceedings alleging it allowed $4 billion in suspicious transactions and failed to carry out diligence on high-risk customers.

Victorian Liberal Party leader John Pesutto has settled two defamation lawsuits by organisers of the ‘Let Women Speak Rally’ and apologised for conflating them with neo-Nazis who crashed the event, saying his comments “could have more clearly differentiated between the groups”.

Four insurers have agreed to fork over $1 million to settle an investor class action against lender Axsesstoday over an allegedly misleading prospectus for a bond offering, while claims against PricewaterhouseCoopers will move forward.