Law Firms

Deloitte may seek confidentiality orders over the amount it agreed to pay to settle a shareholder class action over its audits of collapsed construction group Hastie.

A judge has panned as “thoroughly unsatisfactory” a draft notice informing group members in an underpayments class action against the federal government that only claims on behalf of postgraduate research students at the University of Sydney will continue.

An environment group that alleges former treasurer Josh Frydenberg rejected advice from the climate change office on a high-rise apartment development on protected wetlands near Brisbane has won access to correspondence about the project.

Pitcher Partners has lost its appeal of a decision that refused to stay a lawsuit over the accounting firm’s alleged involvement in race car driver Max Twigg’s misappropriation of $127 million from his family. 

South Australian MP Rebekha Sharkie has been hit with an employment suit by a former staffer who says she was subjected to “a course of bullying behaviour” by the MP that culminated in a stress-related hospitalisation and left her unable to work.

Ernst & Young has been hit with a discrimination suit by a former Asia Pacific director, who alleges she was fired after making complaints of bullying, harassment and discrimination.

A referee will calculate individual damages for 290 former Royal Australian Navy sailors after failed attempts at a settlement in a class action against the Department of Defence, in which a judge ruled the government owed compensation.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has agreed to backpay thousands of branch staff $3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging it failed to provide employees with paid rest breaks for at least six years.

A class action against Virgin Australia has become a lawyers’ feast, with seven new firms entering the ring after a dozen insurers were joined to the action alleging the airline failed to disclose its true financial position in a $324 million capital raising prospectus.

Former G8 Education chair Jennifer Hutson has lost an appeal of a decision that found she was not unlawfully examined by the corporate regulator over the childcare company’s $162 million hostile takeover bid for Affinity Education Group.