National Australia Bank will be hit this year with an estimated $750 million in fines stemming from its fees for no service conduct and potential breaches of money laundering laws, analysts have predicted.
Companies and other defendants forked over big sums last year to settle more than 20 class actions, with a total of at least $734 million being paid out. Here are the top 10 class action settlements and the law firms and funders that negotiated them.
Vocus Group has agreed to settle a shareholder class action over a 2017 profit downgrade, with its insurers footing most of the bill to resolve the proceedings.
Litigation funder IMF Bentham has thrown in the towel in a battle over its cut of a $42 million settlement in a class action against dairy cooperative Murray Goulburn, accepting the Federal Court’s proposed 25 per cent commission rate after initially seeking 32 per cent.
A judge overseeing a consolidated class action against four AMP subsidiaries and two trustees over allegedly excessive superannuation fees has ordered the respondents to coordinate after the lead applicants raised concerns about duplication of work.
Two months after rejecting the deal because the litigation funder’s cut appeared excessive, a judge has approved a $42 million class action settlement with Murray Goulburn while the funder keeps up the fight over its commission.
The High Court’s ruling Wednesday that judges have no power to issue a common fund order in the initial phases of a class action does not bind them after a settlement has been reached, a Federal Court judge said Friday.
The close relationship between regulator action over corporate wrongdoing and private enforcement is an established and powerful means of recovering compensation for victims of corporate misconduct. Increased cooperation between regulators and litigants in class actions would remove a number of substantial barriers to private enforcement action, writes Slater and Gordon lawyer Caitlin Baker.
A judge on Tuesday questioned how elderly group members struggling with the digital age can register in a ‘junk’ insurance class action against National Australia Bank, amid the postponement of hearing to approve the $49.5 million settlement reached in the case.
A judge has rejected a proposal to jointly hear argument for approval of settlements in two class actions against milk supplier Murray Goulburn, saying the issues in one case — led by the legal team under scrutiny for alleged professional misconduct in a separate class action — could be more complicated.