The settlement arrangement resolving five class actions against Volkswagen, which carved out hefty legal fees from the $120 million payout to drivers, could become more prevalent as the spotlight is once again trained on the cost of class actions. But the approach is not without controversy, experts say.
A proposed notice to eligible group members in Maurice Blackburn’s class action against AMP over its fees for no services scandal threatened to bar unregistered shareholders from any settlement stemming from mediation in the case, a threat barred by a recent ruling finding that courts have no power to close class actions to signed up group members, an appeals court has heard.
The Full Federal Court has dismissed BP’s appeal of a ruling by the Fair Work Commission that reinstated a worker who was fired for sharing a video clip that included subtitles placed over a scene from the movie ‘Downfall’ about Adolf Hitler.
A judge has rejected concerns about client poaching raised by the law firms involved in competing class actions against chemical giant Monsanto.
A court has granted a request from Grosvenor Litigation Services, the funder that backed two class actions against Volkswagen over its emissions cheating scandal, to suppress the details of a co-funding agreement with Vannin Capital.
A judge has found that the High Court’s landmark ruling last year blocking common fund orders in the early stages of a class action also barred them from being made at the conclusion of a proceeding, departing from several recent rulings on common fund orders.
After almost five years before the courts, a judge has approved an approximately $120 million settlement of five class actions against Volkswagen over the diesel emissions scandal, including a “very substantial” $43 million in fees and disbursements for one of the plaintiffs firms.
A leading class actions lawyer from Maurice Blackburn “stumbled across” allegedly confidential information embedded in a Treasury Wine Estates’ shareholder presentation and used it in the law firm’s class action pleadings, a court has heard.
A NSW Supreme Court decision refusing to put a Maurice Blackburn-led shareholder class action against AMP on ice pending a High Court challenge has been appealed by the lead applicant of a competing case.
Arnold Bloch Leibler has been granted access to due diligence docs related to Slater and Gordon’s $1.2 billion acquisition of professional services firm Quindell, to use in its defence of a class action over advice it gave on the troubled acquisition.