Judges

The litigation funder behind the class action over Banksia Securities' collapse has admitted it misled a costs consultant retained to report to the court on the reasonableness of the fees in the case, but says its commission should not take a hit as a result because the misconduct occurred after the litigation settled against Banksia's trustee for $64 million.

Administrators for The PAS Group have failed in their bid to have almost $1.4M in rent declared an unsecured debt in the event the fashion retailer goes into liquidation amid the coronavirus pandemic.

A national law firm has dodged an application for access to the files of its current and former clients brought by lawyers investigating a possible class action over allegedly excessive legal costs in personal injury litigation.

An appeals court has sided with James Cook University in its appeal of a ruling awarding $1.2 million to sacked climate skeptic professor Peter Ridd, saying the academic's right to express unpopular views was "necessarily constrained".

Online odd jobs platform Service Seeking has been fined $600,000 for falsely representing that reviews on its platform were written by customers when in fact they were written by the businesses themselves.

The Federal Government will not challenge a ruling in a class action brought on behalf of live exporters which found a total ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia in 2011 was "capricious and unreasonable".

Uber has lost its latest challenge to a landmark class action that alleges the ride-sharing giant engaged in a conspiracy to steal business from taxi and limousine drivers across four states, with an appeals court dismissing arguments the case failed to properly allege an intent to harm.

ASIC has dropped its fight with Westpac over the bank's financial assessment of home loan borrowers following political pressure, citing the "challenging economic circumstances".

An Ashurst partner in a long-running stoush with his former Family Court judge neighbour over a property in the harbourfront Sydney suburb of Point Piper has been hit with indemnity costs for "unreasonably" pushing his case.

A judge overseeing a class action against Suncorp over alleged conflicted remuneration has questioned a proposed opt out notice telling group members they should sign up with the funder backing the case or it might not proceed.