New requirements that funded class actions be run as managed investment schemes will throw up myriad new questions for the courts, with lawyers predicting novel challenges by defendants and group members and an altered landscape for competing class actions.
A judge has refused a bid by accounting firms Pitcher Partners and EY to access share trading data of unregistered group members in a securities class action over advice to Slater & Gordon, despite claims upcoming mediation will be “pointless” without the information.
Qantas has lost its second attempt to delay a hearing on further relief pending an appeal in its outsourcing spat with the Transport Workers Union, with a judge finding a stay would prejudice the union more than the airline.
Qantas has filed a bid to delay a hearing on penalty after a judge found the airline outsourced ground operations partly to prevent employees engaging in industrial action, but the TWU has said a stay would be āunfairā to 1,600 former ground staff.
A ruling this week that rejected the first application for a group costs order in a class action because the applicants were better off with their existing no win, no fee arrangement was the right decision given the limits of the legislation, experts say.
A judge has signed off on a proposal by two law firms to jointly run a consolidated class action against Allianz over add-on car insurance, shooting down the insurer’s argument that a beauty contest would promote competitive contingency fee rates.
Boral has denied that shareholders bringing two class actions against it over financial irregularities in its North America windows business suffered any loss, saying that its systems helped spot and prevent the financial manipulation from continuing.
Saying the interests of class action members “must be given primacy”, a judge has rejected the first bid for a group costs order in a class action since contingency fee legislation passed in Victoria.
Water supplier and dam operator Seqwater has won its high-stakes challenge to a ruling finding it liable for the 2011 Queensland floods and sticking it with half the damages owed to thousands of class action members.
Qantas Airways is seeking to overturn a Federal Court finding that its decision to axe 2,000 ground staff and replace them with labour hire workers during the COVID-19 pandemic was made partially to stop workers engaging in industrial action.