A judge won’t defer the opt-out notice in a shareholder class action against GetSwift pending the High Court’s decision on a special leave application to revive a competing class action, saying the sooner the case settles the better.
Law firms Maurice Blackburn and Phi Finney McDonald have stepped back from a proposed consolidation of their class actions against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and want to run their own cases again, but now with “harmonised” pleadings.
Deloitte is challenging a judge’s ruling that certain partners not be excused from an order to produce files of the accounting giant’s audit work for Hastie Group to shareholders in a class action over the construction company’s collapse, its latest move after a failed attempt to persuade the judge that a rogue partner had taken the only copies of the files and refused to give them back.
Class action experts have come to the defence of boutique law firm Phi Finney McDonald as heavyweight Maurice Blackburn appeals a judge’s ruling to choose the “less experienced” firm to lead a shareholder class action against BHP Billiton.
Maurice Blackburn has criticised a judge’s decision to award carriage of a massive shareholder class action against BHP over the fatal collapse of a dam at its Brazilian mine to “less experienced” firm Phi Finney McDonald, lodging what is now the second high-stakes challenge to a ruling permanently staying a competing class action.
Logistics startup GetSwift has confirmed it will fight an appeal to the High Court by law firm Squire Patton Boggs challenging a landmark ruling that permanently stayed two of three competing shareholder class actions against the company.
GetSwift failed to disclose to investors that under an agreement announced with Amazon, the e-commerce giant had no obligation to use the logistics provider for any of its deliveries, according to new court documents filed in the shareholder class action against GetSwift and its founders.
Last year was an exciting one for class action lawyers, with monumental court decisions on competing cases, cross-jurisdictional spats, proportionality in settlements and the power of judges to decide how a recovery is distributed. Here, top class action litigators tell us what the most significant rulings of 2018 were and why the decisions will continue to matter this year.
The law firms that challenged a ruling staying their cases against GetSwift gave the Full Federal Court a chance to guide judges managing competing class actions, but they can’t avoid paying their opponents’ legal costs because the court happened to seize the opportunity.
A law firm on the losing end of a landmark ruling over competing shareholder class actions against GetSwift has argued that a proposed opt-out notice to group members should wait until after its High Court appeal. And the judge will let the firm make its argument, after hearing that the winning law firm has been, in his words, “sitting on its hands”.