The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has been fined $150,000 after a Federal Court judge found the bank had breached the law by increasing a problem gambler’s credit card limit but that the conduct was “not systematic, deliberate or covert”.
A judge due to hear a high profile appeal by Johnson & Johnson unit Ethicon has expressed confusion about the grounds on which the medical device maker is challenging a landmark judgment putting it on the hook for potentially hundreds of million of dollars in damages over faulty pelvic mesh implants.
A solicitor who failed to respond to calls from the Federal Court has been criticised by a judge for filing what appeared to be a “deficient” application in a case run on behalf of gangland lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson in her bid to obtain details from Google over the identity of an online reviewer.
The state of Western Australia is facing a class action by Indigenous workers seeking to recover stolen wages, after a historic $190 million settlement was reached last year in a stolen wages class action against the state of Queensland.
A judge has refused an application by the Federal Government to appeal the expansion of the Robodebt class action pleadings despite finding the case was “troubling”, “weak” and in certain aspects “[made] no sense whatsoever”.
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.
The Federal Government is appealing a judge’s decision to allow the expansion of the Robodebt class action to include claims against five public officers, including Federal Minister Alan Tudge.
The judge overseeing a settled class action against Murray Goulburn, which earned millions of dollars for the same legal team accused of serious misconduct in the running of the Banksia class action, invited the parties last month to reopen the case, concerned he had been misled when approving the lawyers’ costs.
Women’s fashion designer Pinnacle Runway must pay indemnity costs for pursuing what a judge has described as an “ill-advised” trade mark infringement lawsuit against a rival that “cried out to be settled”.
The need to properly prepare a large commercial class action is not reason enough to relieve lawyers of COVID-19 restrictions aimed at protecting the health and safety of Victorians, the Federal Court’s chief judge has said in explaining why he denied a bid by the Melbourne-based legal team behind the Crown Resorts class action to have the case declared a priority.