Associate Justice Patricia Matthews

Dealer Brighton Automative is gunning for $13.9 million in damages after Honda cut its contract off prematurely, with Honda hopeful the figure is more like $12.1 million. 

Almost 7,000 taxi drivers who did not sign up to two class actions against Uber by the deadline are asking the court for a cut of a $272 million settlement, with a judge questioning what she “unleashed” when sending out the notice of settlement. 

General Motors has failed to overturn a decision that put it on the hook for the applicant’s full costs in a partial settlement in a class action on behalf of Holden dealers, with an appeals court finding GM could not “walk away” from the ordinary meaning of the phrase ‘the plaintiff’s costs of the proceedings’.

An appeals court has questioned General Motors’ construction of its settlement with the applicant in a class action on behalf of Holden dealers, as the car maker seeks to overturn a ruling that put it on the hook for the applicant’s full costs.

General Motors is stuck with the full costs of the applicant in a Holden dealers’ class action as part of a settlement with the dealership, despite arguing it had intended by its offer to pay the costs incurred only by the lead plaintiff itself.

General Motors could be stuck paying more costs than it bargained for after it settled with the lead plaintiff in a class action over a decision to retire the Holden brand.

The Victorian government has elevated an Associate Justice who has overseen class actions and a senior counsel who assisted the Victorian royal commission into Crown Resorts to serve as judges on the Supreme Court of Victoria. 

A former McDonald’s franchisee has lost his challenge to a privilege claim by the fast food giant in his lawsuit alleging he was wrongly dropped after questioning his neighbour’s Indigenous identity in a 2019 viral video recording an altercation over an Aboriginal flag.

Requests by litigants for judges to disqualify themselves from presiding over cases were largely denied last year, in a raft of decisions containing lessons for litigants weighing up their own recusal bids in 2023.

A judge who previously acted for a United Petroleum Group company in a “highly acrimonious” case eight years ago has refused to recuse herself from adjudicating a new dispute involving a related company.