Judges

Two former Dick Smith directors targeted by dual class actions have expanded their case against Deloitte over the retailer’s 2016 collapse, saying if the company was found liable for shareholder losses then the auditor should be blamed for its shoddy work on the company’s financial statements during its float three years earlier.

Internet provider TPG says it has been “vindicated” by a judge’s decision to throw out the consumer watchdog’s case over allegedly unfair contract terms that allowed the telco to keep millions of dollars of customer’s unused prepaid funds.

Motorola has slammed competitor Hytera for its “spectacularly poor” handling of expert evidence in a high stakes intellectual property dispute between the two tech giants, arguing the pre-trial timetable should not be upended on account of the Chinese radio maker’s “pig-headed” insistence on using unavailable witnesses.

The litigation funder bankrolling a new class action against Toyota over allegedly faulty filters in its diesel models is looking to earn a step-up commission of between 20 and 30 percent of any recovery in the case.

Hong Kong-based UDP was entitled to $25 million from its insurers after losing more than $30 million from its disastrous acquisition of dairy conglomerate 5 Star Foods, which had been secretly overcharging one of its biggest customers, food giant Lion Nathan Group.

The plaintiffs in a farming class action brought against Advanta Seeds over allegedly contaminated sorghum have been denied access to the defendant’s insurance policy documents, after a judge found “significant differences” with a recently successful application in a class action against Radio Rentals.

QBE Underwriting has defended its decision to deny insurance coverage to the builder of Sydney’s troubled Opal Tower development, claiming the cracking was not “major” and did not cause last year’s Christmas Eve evacuation.

The judge who presided over a rare securities class action trial last year against department store Myer will deliver judgment in the case this month that could be the first ruling on causation in Australian shareholder class actions and has the potential to have a chilling effect on law firms bringing the cases.

The High Court has shut down a lawsuit by mortgage aggregator Connective Services over the transfer of one third of the company’s shares after finding the proceeding prejudiced shareholders and contravened the Corporations Act.

The judge overseeing the long-running class action over allegedly faulty Ford PowerShift transmissions has told the applicants they might need to put up considerable cash security to cover the “war and peace of discovery” disputes, after Ford slammed the delayed request for documents as “complete and utter nonsense”.