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Common fund orders in class actions are legal and not unconstitutional, six judges found Friday after a history-making joint sitting of two appeals courts.
A five-member appeals panel in the NSW Supreme Court has overturned former NSW Labor Minister for Mineral Resources Ian Macdonald's conviction for wilful misconduct of public office in relation to the Doyles Creek Mining scandal.
A judge overseeing a class action against the NSW government over a contractor who sold injured workers' information to Bannister Law has questioned the effectiveness of placing ads for group members on law firm websites, saying she didn't think it would "draw the matter to anyone's attention".
Common fund orders are the completion of the notion of class actions envisaged when the regime was introduced 27 years ago, a joint-sitting of two appeals courts was told on the second and last day of a landmark challenge to what has become an oft-used case management tool by trial judges.
An appeal before a historic joint sitting of two courts over so-called common fund orders in class actions kicked off Monday with a full bench of six judges and a packed courtroom hearing arguments by eminent barristers for BMW and Westpac that the orders are either preemptive or pointless.
A challenge to the legality of common fund orders, an appeal to the High Court over the power of judges to stay competing cases, one of the first judgments in a shareholder class action and reform proposals promise to make 2019 another action-packed year in class actions. Here, experts give their predictions for the class action landscape this year.
And then there were four. Plaintiffs law firm Slater & Gordon wants to consolidate its AMP shareholder class action with Maurice Blackburn's case and hand over the reins to its rival, a deal signed the day the Full Federal Court affirmed the power of judges to shut down competing class actions.
The showdown between five law firms vying to lead a class action over the AMP fees for no service scandal kicked off in the NSW Supreme Court Thursday with counsel for one case saying the contest, although costly and consuming, would ultimately be a win for all class action participants.
AMP's advice executive Jack Regan, the witness who aired the firm's fees-for-no-service dirty laundry at the Royal Commission, has retired, a day before five law firms compete to lead a class action over the scandal.
Law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan will call in US experts to back up its proposed "step up" funding model as five law firms begin a high stakes battle to lead a shareholder class action against AMP.