The group providing funding to claimants in a class action against the federal government over its 2011 ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia does not have to comply with new rules requiring litigation funders to obtain an AFSL and operate as a managed investment scheme in order to sign up new group members.
The corporate regulator is pushing for a three-year director ban against former Murray Goulburn managing director Gary Helou and a two-year disqualification order against the dairy cooperative’s former chief financial officer over misleading representations about farmgate milk prices five years ago.
The consumer watchdog has filed court proceedings against agricultural equipment supplier Agrison for allegedly misleading tractor purchasers about its warranties and after-sales services.
Australia’s leading livestock group cannot block US company Branhaven from amending its application for a bovine genome patent, which the group has worried could harm the Australian cattle industry’s ability to use genetic tests.
Fifty horse owners may face cross-examination regarding adverse effects allegedly caused by Zoetis’ Hendra virus vaccine, with the company warning a four-week hearing scheduled to begin in March may be insufficient to deal with the horse owners’ evidence.
The Murray Goulburn class action run by Elliott Legal bears similarities to the Banksia class action, a case rife with scandal and offered up by opponents as proof of the problems with the class action regime. The leading lawyers were the same in both cases. In one they have abandoned any claim to their fees and have walked away from their careers. In the other they walked away with $5 million.
Pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim has failed in its Federal Court challenge to a patent application for an injectable anti-parasite drug for livestock by a subsidiary of competitor Merck Sharp & Dohme.
Sustainable technology company Papyrus Australia has reached a settlement with its former CEO in a defamation case that alleged the omission of his name in the company’s 2018 annual report was akin to calling him a liar.
A judge has signed off on a $10.5 million settlement in a class action over the 2015 Scotsburn bushfire in Victoria, but slashed the costs of the law firm that brought the case by over $1 million.
Two insurance companies have been joined as respondents to a class action against forestry giant Gunns over the failure of six managed investment schemes for eucalyptus wood in Tasmania.