Justice Michael Lee

The lead applicant in a franchisee class action against the Hog’s Breath Cafe restaurant chain is considering an application to declass the case it brought after losing a challenge to a $1.23 million security for costs order.

Accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann will learn this week whether his defamation cases against News Corp and Network Ten can proceed despite the expiration of a 12-month limitations period.

Shine Lawyers can deduct 50 per cent of its fees and all of its costs from a $300 million settlement in pelvic mesh class actions against Johnson & Johnson while a judge mulls whether the law firm’s total bill is fair and reasonable.

Westpac has hit back at a bid by ASIC to add an allegation to the regulator’s insider trading case that hinges on the bank providing financial services when it traded on the morning of a $16 billion deal to privatise electricity provider Ausgrid.

Insurer Bond & Credit Company has overcome an administrator’s protests and won leave to bring cross-claims against three Greensill entities in lawsuits over the financing firm’s $1.7 billion collapse.

An appeals court has partially sided with Toyota in a challenge to the damages bill assessed by a judge in a class action over defective diesel filters, saying the reduction in value of affected cars should be assessed at 10 per cent, not 17.5 per cent, of the price paid by motorists.

A judge overseeing a competition class action against Queensland power companies Stanwell and CS Energy has warned that judges need to be inventive in how they manage large group proceedings, otherwise the “system will collapse”.

The insurers of Blue Sky Alternative Investments are fighting a bid to be joined to a consolidated investor class action against the company and its auditor, EY.

A judge has sent the ABC away to rethink its truth defence to claims in a case brought by former Army major Heston Russell that alleges two articles in 2021 defamed him by suggesting among other things that he was involved in murdering an Afghan prisoner.

A judge has rejected a bid by The Project presenter Lisa Wilkinson to discover a 39,000-page AFP report outlining the contents of accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann’s phone, calling it “a classic fishing expedition.”