The judge presiding over the settlement approval hearing in a shareholder class action against telecommunications company Vocus Group has questioned whether the High Court’s recent ruling striking down common fund orders at the outset of class actions would allow him to make such an order at settlement.
Repeated suggestions of a planned strike out application are being used as a “threat” by four AMP subsidiaries and two trustees in a consolidated class action over allegedly excessive superannuation fees, a court has heard.
Slater and Gordon’s directors and senior executives have taken a voluntary pay cut of up to 15 per cent in a move aimed at giving the firm flexibility to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cigno is facing a possible class action over alleged predatory lending practices that were banned by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission last year, one day after losing a courtroom challenge to the ban.
Lamenting that he now has less flexibility to manage commission rates, a judge has called for legislative intervention to give courts authority to regulate funding arrangements at the outset of class actions, a power stripped from them by the High Court late last year.
A judge has signed off on a $37.5 million Murray Goulburn class action settlement but slashed $2 million in legal costs sought by Mark Elliott’s law firm, which is running the case.
Union heavyweight John Setka has successfully defended a case brought by CFMEU boss Micheal O’Connor seeking orders restraining Setka from poaching members from the union’s manufacturing division.
Noting the challenge of searching for documentary evidence while employees are working from home, a judge overseeing two consumer class actions against ANZ and Westpac has directed the banks to hand over only a limited number of documents to the applicants, and given them extra time to do it.
Treasury Wine Estates has said it will vigorously defend a shareholder class action filed this week over a recent earnings downgrade, one of two possible class actions the wine producer could be facing over the announcement.
A judge overseeing a class action against National Australia Bank over ‘junk insurance’ has ordered that potential group members be given information about cancelling the policies, but not before taking the applicants to task for not having the polices automatically cancelled as part of the $49.5 million settlement.