A hearing in the Federal Government’s latest inquiry into class actions kicked off Monday with attacks on the credibility of one of the heads of Liberal think tank the Menzies Research Centre, who was excoriated by a Labor senator for providing “unsubstantiated” data from Herbert Smith Freehills that group members receive on average 39 per cent of class action proceeds.
A judge has trimmed the costs the Commissioner of Patents owes Aristocrat Technologies after the gaming giant successfully appealed a ruling rejecting four of its gaming patents, saying Aristocrat had “over-egged the pudding” by submitting evidence from three experts on the patentability of its inventions.
A judge has warned counsel leading a shareholder class action against logistics provider GetSwift that “real persuasion” would be needed to convince him to allow the class to expand its case two months out from trial.
A judge has pushed off a heated contest between law firms vying to lead a shareholder class action against construction giant Boral for what could be a year as a landmark High Court challenge plays out.
A litigation funder’s average rate of return on its investment in shareholder class actions was one of a number of factors weighed by a judge in approving a 25 per cent funding cut from the $42 million settlement in a class action against dairy cooperative Murray Goulburn.
A judge on Friday dismissed Westpac’s bid for an update from litigation funder JustKapital as to whether it continues to financially back a class action against the bank over allegedly excessive insurance premiums.
A court has signed off on a settlement of a class action brought against oil and gas giant Santos by a group of Indigenous Australians who claimed they were misled about their entitlement to receive certain travel allowances while working as casual cultural heritage monitors for the company.
Virgin Australia unsecured bondholders contesting the sale of the embattled airline to private equity firm Bain Capital have failed in their bid to access confidential transaction documents, but a judge has urged the administrators to communicate with the frustrated creditors.
The parties in a ‘sham’ contracting class action brought on behalf of telecommunications workers have both lost bids to recover interlocutory costs, with a judge noting that costs orders against funded litigants should be the exception rather than the rule in Fair Work litigation.
Hytera Communications argued it should be granted a late-stage bid to postpone its copyright trial with Motorola Solutions, in what a judge called “the most complicated adjournment application” he’d ever heard.