The showdown between five law firms vying to lead a class action over the AMP fees for no service scandal kicked off in the NSW Supreme Court Thursday with counsel for one case saying the contest, although costly and consuming, would ultimately be a win for all class action participants.
AMP’s advice executive Jack Regan, the witness who aired the firm’s fees-for-no-service dirty laundry at the Royal Commission, has retired, a day before five law firms compete to lead a class action over the scandal.
A judge overseeing the marathon hearing in the class action over the 2011 Queensland floods has allowed the lead applicant to submit further evidence after it claimed defendant Seqwater engaged in “trial by ambush”.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is open to a proposal to consolidate two shareholder class actions filed over alleged breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism laws, but will address any “devil in the details”, a lawyer for the bank told a court Tuesday.
A lingering dispute with the tax office remains, but the distribution of the record $795 million Black Saturday class actions settlement is substantially complete, according to a report out this week, and the proceedings, by the measure of at least one expert, show why the class action system in Australia is working.
Maurice Blackburn Lawyers said Wednesday it is expanding its class action against Uber, with the firm saying the total claim against the US ride-sharing company would likely dwarf any class action recovery in Australia’s history.
Former MP Mark Latham has agreed to settle a defamation case brought against him by the political editor of pop culture site Junkee, and he could be on the hook for a $100,000 payout.
A late proposal by the Australian Law Reform Commission to introduce a ‘leave to proceed’ mechanism into class actions has been blasted by a major litigation funder and a plaintiffs-side law firm as a de facto class certification procedure that would ramp up costs and add years of delay to cases.
The court’s authority to shut down competing class actions is no longer in doubt after Tuesday’s Full Federal Court judgment in the case against GetSwift, and while there is no “silver bullet” when it comes to how judges must deal with multiple proceedings, there are key factors to weigh, the appeals court said. Here, experts provide the big takeaways from the landmark ruling.
Maurice Blackburn and Phi Finney McDonald have sidestepped a competing class action battle in the high-stakes litigation against Commonwealth Bank of Australia over alleged breaches of money laundering laws, with the firms proposing to jointly lead a consolidated class action against the bank.