The trial in a much anticipated shareholder class action against engineering firm WorleyParsons scheduled to commence this week has hit a roadblock, with a last minute change in the judge that will hear the matter.
Two rulings Friday keeping alive the common fund order are a ringing endorsement by the courts of the important role that litigation funders play in class actions, experts say, and have paved the way for more funded post-Hayne consumer litigation against banks and other financial services firms this year.
Common fund orders in class actions are legal and not unconstitutional, six judges found Friday after a history-making joint sitting of two appeals courts.
A state judge has ordered the litigation funders behind a group of federal class actions against AMP to pay the legal costs of their failed transfer applications, saying while he could not make the applicants pay, he could compel the funders to cough up the money.
Judgments in two appeals challenging the legality of common fund orders issued by courts in class actions will be handed down this week, and the rulings could have a profound effect on how class actions are run by lawyers and their funders in the future.
Foxtel and Optus contractor BSA may be hit with a class action on behalf of telecommunications technicians allegedly engaged as independent contractors so the company could avoid paying them certain entitlements.
Gladstone Ports has won access to draft expert reports prepared by Clyde & Co in its $100 million class action against the Queensland government owned organisation, with a judge ruling the documents were not privileged despite their not being used in the case.
Common fund orders are the completion of the notion of class actions envisaged when the regime was introduced 27 years ago, a joint-sitting of two appeals courts was told on the second and last day of a landmark challenge to what has become an oft-used case management tool by trial judges.
The judge overseeing a class action against Ethicon over allegedly faulty pelvic mesh implants has shot down the device maker’s bid for a class closure order.
An appeal before a historic joint sitting of two courts over so-called common fund orders in class actions kicked off Monday with a full bench of six judges and a packed courtroom hearing arguments by eminent barristers for BMW and Westpac that the orders are either preemptive or pointless.