Television presenter Lisa Wilkinson has filed her defence to a defamation suit by accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann, arguing the claim that he raped fellow Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019 is substantially true.
The divisive issue of whether judges are empowered to make a common fund order to distribute the costs of a funding commission at the settlement stage of a class action is headed back to the Full Federal Court next week.
A law firm has questioned an “innovative” funding model proposed by its rival in a contest to run a class action against Jaguar Land Rover over allegedly defective diesel filters in its vehicles.
A class action accusing Virgin Australia of failing to disclose its true financial position in a 2019 prospectus for a $324 million capital raising is seeking to join a slew of the airline’s insurers to the case.
A judge has approved a $192.5 million settlement in an oil spill class action on behalf of Indonesian seaweed farmers, but the slice for the law firm running the action and its litigation funder remains to be determined amid allegations of negligence by the former lead applicant in the case.
Sixteen law firms and accounting firms have thrown their hat in the ring to administer a $300 million settlement in two class actions against Johnson & Johnson over pelvic mesh devices that injured thousands of women.
A contradictor appointed in two pelvic mesh class actions against Johnson & Johnson has blasted a $300 million settlement, calling it “massively” short of what is owed to group members, after a judge preliminarily found the sum was not fair and reasonable.
GetSwift has been hit with a $15M penalty and several of its directors have been slapped with substantial penalties after the company was found to have misled shareholders in breach of the Corporations Act.
The question of power to make a common fund order at the end of a class action was no longer a hypothetical one and it was time to send the issue to the Full Federal Court. That’s what the 7-Eleven class action judge was told 15 months ago but he failed to heed the advice, resulting in a court deeply divided and funders clamouring for reform.
The applicants in a consolidated investor class action against Blue Sky Alternative Investments and auditor EY will be applying for a so-called solicitors common fund order, and will move to transfer the case to the contingency-fee friendly Victoria Supreme Court if the groundbreaking application fails.