The country’s most experienced class action law firm won two and lost two in last year’s beauty parades before the courts, showing track record is not everything when it comes to winning carriage of cases and that picking the winner can be a tricky business. From line-ball decisions to law firm team-ups and the lowest contingency fee order yet, here’s how 2023’s class action contests went down.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has lost its opposition to the registration of three trade marks by pay on demand company BeforePay, with a delegate finding that consumers of banking and financial services were unlikely to be confused by the marks and acted with high “care and attention”.
Gaming giant Aristocrat is suing its head of design for alleged intellectual property infringement and has secured orders restraining him from using or disclosing any of thousands of company files he is accused of copying.
Vittoria’s Cantarella Bros has lodged an appeal in a long-running trade mark stoush with Italian rival Lavazza after a judge found the coffee manufacturer’s two registered ‘Oro’ marks should be cancelled because the word was previously used by another coffee supplier.
An investor class action against Virgin Australia has mounted a new challenge to a contentious indemnity clause, which the airline claims entitles it to receive periodic payments for its legal costs in defending the claims.
A judge’s decision to chop $810,000 from the funder’s cut of a settled class action against Westpac sounds a warning to class action litigators that when it comes to determining the size of a commission, case budgets matter.
Former Pinsent Masons lawyer George Varma has been recruited to Gilbert + Tobin’s energy and resources team, marking the second lateral hire for the firm’s Perth office this financial year.
Glencore-owned Viterra must pay indemnity costs to four Joe White employees it dragged into a 10-year feud with Cargill over the $420 million sale of the Joe White business, after a judge found its claims against them were “hopeless from the outset”.
A former Gilbert + Tobin lawyer with over 20 years’ experience advising clients in finance transactions has joined Squire Patton Boggs’ as a partner in Sydney.
Gilbert + Tobin has lured partner Orla McCoy from Clayton Utz to co-head the law firm’s leading restructuring and insolvency team, strengthening the practice to over 18 core lawyers.