Two heavyweight plaintiff firms battled it out Friday to run a shareholder class action against Beach Energy, with Shine Lawyers saying it should be rewarded for setting the price of the contingency fees sought in the case and Slater & Gordon arguing it has a better track record in class actions.
A judge overseeing a joint class action against Freedom Foods and Deloitte wants to break a bad habit among litigators of attaching to affidavits reams of correspondence between solicitors, and she has a message for legal practitioners — the court is not interested in what lawyers say to each other.
Technology company Nuix has been hit with a third shareholder class action over its troubled $1.8 billion float on the ASX, setting up what is likely to be the first beauty parade in the Supreme Court of Victoria since the state allowed class action lawyers to seek a cut of any settlement or judgment.
A law firm that ran two class actions over the St Patrick’s Day bushfires has lost a bid to have group members foot the bill for $50,000 in adverse costs, with a judge saying there was “no basis” for the request.
The funder that was bankrolling a class action alleging pharmacy giant Priceline exercised an “overly prescriptive level of control” on franchisees which limited their profitability has withdrawn its support for the proceeding.
The law firm behind a consumer class action against Suncorp subsidiary AAI over add-on car insurance says notices to group members should not be sent until the case is ready for trial and the “information asymmetry” is corrected.
Grain producer Viterra will be ordered to pay Cargill Australia $168.9 million after a judge found the Glencore-owned company misrepresented the performance capabilities of malt producer Joe White when it sold the company for $420 million in 2013.
The first order allowing plaintiffs lawyers to take a cut of the proceeds of a class action will guarantee group members in a case against G8 Education at least 72.5 per cent of any recoveries — a notably higher percentage than the minimum legislated by a controversial bill before federal parliament.
Shareholders in a class action against failed steel giant Arrium and KPMG have lost their bid for KPMG’s complete audit file for Arrium to probe the Big Four accounting firm’s handling of the steel producer’s financial statements before its collapse in April 2016.
Judgment day has arrived in a legal battle over the $420 million sale of the Joe White malt business so epic four silks on the case were elevated to judgeships during its long run, but losing party Viterra has not ruled out an appeal.