A judge has rejected a class closure order application by the lead applicants in a class action against convenience store chain On The Run ahead of mediation, finding that the court does not have power to make such an order at a “relatively early” stage in a class action.
A judge has ordered ASIC to enter mediation before heading into a “very expensive” trial with an IOOF subsidiary accused of giving shonky advice, over objections from the regulator that mediation would be “completely futile”.
IOOF subsidiary Australian Executor Trustees failed to drag law firm Sparke Helmore into a case after it was hit with a $76.6 million judgment over breaches of duty in the sale of a 42,000 hectare timber plantation by collapsed forestry giant Gunns Group.
A judge has refused a bid to file a new pleading in a $1.3 million “squabble” with an “unfortunate history” between a client and his former solicitors, one of whom is now dead, dating back to 1993.
Fairfax has hit back at claims in a lawsuit that the publisher defamed a barrister in an article alleging he helped Texas billionaire Bob Brockman defraud the United States of US$2 billion in taxes, denying the article defamed the lawyer and saying the report was an honest summary of publically available information.
Whether a contingency fee order made in a Victoria Supreme Court class action can survive a transfer application to a NSW court could be the next high stakes class action issue for the courts.
RMIT has bit back at a $2.9 million lawsuit by an indigenous law professor who claims the university fired him for complaining about “racially and sexually discriminatory remarks” allegedly made by one of the university’s senior officials, saying he plunged $21,000 of RMIT’s funds into research for a potential private global sake and baby formula venture.
Norwegian shipping company Wallenius Wilhlmsen Ocean has been fined $24 million for conspiring to fix the rates charged for shipping vehicles to Australia, bringing the total fines won by the ACCC over the shipping cartel to $83.5 million.
In Wigmans v AMP the High Court will shortly deliver judgment on the vexed issue of class actions that compete to represent substantially the same class or group. Dr Michael Duffy of Monash University previews the decision.
A Victorian barrister has reached a settlement on the eve of trial in a breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit brought by a former client who lost a court case over a $24.5 million real estate dispute.