Payouts in class actions in 2020 largely kept pace with the previous year despite the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, with companies and other defendants paying more than $696 million to settle class actions last year.
A Brisbane-based law firm is being sued by a paralegal who claims she was forced to take a 20 per cent pay cut during the COVID-19 pandemic on the basis of misleading statements by the firm’s director.
Billionaire Clive Palmer has offered to withdraw his High Court contempt of court lawsuit against Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan “in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness”, but his defamation case against the state leader will continue.
Casino and mobile game giant Aristocrat Leisure has reached a settlement in its lawsuit against rival Ainsworth Game Technology that alleged a former employee stole trade secrets related to a lucrative slot machine.
The law firm that led an unfunded class action against the Federal government over the controversial Robodebt scheme will ask the court to approve up to $16 million in legal costs when it seeks approval for the $112 million settlement reached in the class action last year.
Two psychiatrists at the heart of the Chelmsford deep sleep therapy scandal have launched an appeal of a decision dismissing their defamation case against HarperCollins as an attempt to “rewrite history” regarding the harm done to those receiving the controversial treatment.
A judge has rejected a bid by Uber to significantly trim a class action brought by Maurice Blackburn on behalf of successors and assignees or taxi drivers after the law firm unsuccessfully sought to add them to a separate class action against the ride share giant.
The Australian chapter of the Hells Angels bikie gang is once again going after online marketplace Redbubble for alleged intellectual property infringement, this time over a range of new products that include face masks bearing the group’s famous insignia.
Shock jock Alan Jones has reached a settlement in his defamation lawsuit against SBS and The Feed presenter Alex Lee over a television segment that referred to him as someone who “spoke to the fears of every xenophobe and misogynist in the country”.
A fight over whether a class action applicant must fork over security for costs is not a matter of the strength of the case, says a judge presiding over a class action brought by superannuation holders against Commonwealth Bank of Australia and subsidiaries Colonial First State and Avanteos.