A recent ruling cutting the contingency fee sought by a plaintiff law firm shows competition to run class actions will drive down the percentage payout courts are willing to permit. And as more firms enter the market for a slice of the returns, the downward pressure on profits will only build.
A judge has described as “extraordinary” a law firm’s argument that the court should approve a $5.8 million settlement in an underpayments class action against the On The Run convenience store chain partly because it ran out of funds to take the case to trial.
Two Dixon Advisory insurers have lost a bid to limit the details of insurance policies handed over to a class action purported to worth $463 million, after a judge’s ruled the collapsed wealth manager should disclose its insurance for liability in the case.
A judge has found the applicant in a dismissed class action against animal health giant Zoetis is liable for the company’s defence costs in the case centering on alleged serious side effects of horse vaccine Equivac.
A judge has signed off on a group costs order in class action against Allianz over add-on car insurance that will give plaintiff law firms Johnson Winter & Slattery and Maurice Blackburn no more than 25 per cent of any resolution in the case.
Companies associated with the wife of disgraced senior barrister Norman O’Bryan can’t get a new judge to hear their battle against a third-party costs summons that would make them jointly liable for a $21.5 million judgment for investors in a class action over Banksia Securities’ collapse.
A class action on behalf of businesses claiming harm from the 2020 hotel quarantine debacle has fought back against the state of Victoria’s bid to push the case off until a criminal action against the state’s Department of Health has been heard.
The Australian supplier of alleged combustible cladding is opposing a class action applicant’s bid for information ahead of settlement talks on the quantity of cladding sold in the country between 2009 and 2019.
The NSW government will move to de-class a representative proceeding over police strip searches at 50 music festivals, after a judge cast doubt on whether the case should be run as a class action.
A judge has granted a law firm’s bid for a group costs order in a shareholder class action against payments processing company EML, but has trimmed its proposed cut of any recovery after comparing it to the contingency fee rate the firm accepted in another class action.