The Murray Goulburn class action run by Elliott Legal bears similarities to the Banksia class action, a case rife with scandal and offered up by opponents as proof of the problems with the class action regime. The leading lawyers were the same in both cases. In one they have abandoned any claim to their fees and have walked away from their careers. In the other they walked away with $5 million.
The judge overseeing a settled class action against Murray Goulburn, which earned millions of dollars for the same legal team accused of serious misconduct in the running of the Banksia class action, invited the parties last month to reopen the case, concerned he had been misled when approving the lawyers’ costs.
US white shoe firm White & Case has snagged a leading tax partner from Herbert Smith Freehills’ tax firm to bolster its growing team in Australia.
Herbert Smith Freehills has discovered it underpaid a number of its graduate lawyers, with some in the Big Six firm’s graduate ranks owed more than $20,000.
As the economic impact of Covid-19 continues to develop, we can expect promoters of class actions to explore claims which arise from the pandemic – some of these will be in familiar territory, whilst other claim may be novel, say Herbert Smith Freehills’ Harry Edwards and Dylan O’Keefe.
A shareholder class action against Vocation that has spanned five years and spawned multiple cross claims against the failed training company’s auditor, law firm and individual directors, has reached an in-principle settlement.
A landmark judgment by the Full Federal Court has found that a full bench of the Fair Work Commission “misconstrued” its own authority to make general protections findings about the dismissal of employees.
The Australian Securities and and Investments Commission has won a $57.5 million judgment against two units of National Australia Bank for making misleading representations to superannuation customers regarding $100 million in fees charged for services they never received, far short of the $125 million sought by the corporate regulator.
Herbert Smith Freehills will ask lawyers to spend just 60 per cent of their time in the office once they are free to return, a change to the firm’s agile working policy that acknowledges the upside of remote working in the COVID-19 era, co-head of global disputes Anna Sutherland told Lawyerly.
An appeals court has dealt with complex jurisdiction and limitations issues in transferring one of three class actions against ride sharing giant Uber to another court, with one of the judges saying legislative reforms were needed to deal with the issues.