Justice Michael Lee

Publishing reasons for refusing an application by Super Retail Group to redact parts of its former chief legal officer’s case, a judge has called out the practice of “extensive” suppression applications despite the exhortations of courts that justice must be open.

Super Retail Group has lost a bid to suppress parts of a case by former chief legal officer and company secretary Rebecca Farrell, who says she was sacked in May following complaints of corporate goverance issues, as a second senior employee steps up to back her former colleague’s claims.

Buoyed by the recent trial success of CBA and other companies facing shareholder ire, building materials giant Boral is taking its chances at a hearing in a class action alleging disclosure breaches linked to its US windows business.

Deciding an “unusually difficult” costs application, a judge has declined to award Monsanto all of its costs for defending a class action alleging its Roundup weed killer is carcinogenic, saying the agrochemical giant should have pushed harder for a split trial. 

Super Retail Group has made a bid to disqualify the solicitors of its former chief legal officer, who has sued the company to enforce an alleged settlement. But the Rebel Sport owner may have to defend a duelling application to disqualify its own solicitors, from Big Six firm Allens.

Plaintiff firm Maurice Blackburn will foot the bill for the unsuccessful class action against Monsanto over weed killer Roundup, but the company’s reluctance to split the trial in two has come back to bite it.

A judge has dismissed a class action alleging Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer is carcinogenic but did not go so far as to say it definitively does not cause cancer, while also dressing down the lawyers for both sides for causing delays in the case.

McDonald’s has raised concerns about a “skewed” sample of employees for the initial trial in a class action alleging the fast food giant denied shift managers compensation for pre- and post-shift work.

Four insurers have argued that class actions over alleged business interruption losses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic should be de-classed, with one insurer saying group members cannot “go behind” a Full Court decision denying coverage for certain policyholders.

Although carefully reasoned, last week’s landmark judgment by the Full Federal Court finding power to grant contingency fees to class action solicitors has placed the question of statutory authority to award settlement common fund orders on more unsteady ground than before, experts say.