Law Firms

The managing partner of a leading plaintiff law firm has agreed to drop his case against a Melbourne law firm, which he claimed failed to properly advise him on an agreement that barred him from selling his shares in Slater & Gordon before the firm’s share price plummeted in 2015. 

Keybridge Capital chief executive officer Nicholas Bolton has lost his appeal of a costs review panel decision that saddled him with a legal bill of $308,940 for work done by Atanaskovic Hartnell for his company in a dispute with Brookfield Multiplex.

Subcontractor EnerMech has won an appeal in its fight against Acciona over a $10 million progress payment for work on the Westconnex M4-M5 link, with an appeals court finding the question of whether EnerMech’s claim was a payment claim for construction work was a matter for an adjudicator, not the court.

The French association representing wine producers from Champagne has discontinued its lawsuit against an Australian retailer after it agreed to only use seed extract from the Champagne region of France. 

Although carefully reasoned, last week’s landmark judgment by the Full Federal Court finding power to grant contingency fees to class action solicitors has placed the question of statutory authority to award settlement common fund orders on more unsteady ground than before, experts say.

Metal mining company Fortescue hired private investigators to spy on former employees who created green iron start-up Element Zero, sifting through their mail, taking photos of their children and following them to Kmart, a court has heard. 

Group members in a class action against ANZ over credit card interest charges that settled for $57.5 million are expected to take home at least 60 per cent of the settlement sum after legal fees and a funder’s commission are deducted.

In a win for ASIC, the Federal Court has found that non-bank lender Firstmac Limited breached the design and distribution obligations, introduced in 2021, by marketing a managed investment scheme that could be unsuitable for customers’ financial needs. 

HWL Ebsworth and a former capital partner have both appealed a ruling that found the partner was invalidly expelled in 2020 but that his partnership had been dissolved from the day he sued his former firm. 

The Fair Work Commission has ruled that an electrician with BlueScope Steel was unfairly dismissed following a complaint by a coworker who did not give evidence to the commission, finding that it was “abundantly unfair” for the complaint to be advanced as hearsay evidence.