An interlocutory decision in a class action against superannuation trustee Colonial First State Investments may have significant implications for how cases against super fund trustees are litigated in the future, says Slater & Gordon’s Jessica Zarkovic and Joel Gilbourd.
NSW Health wants to amend its defence to an underpayments class action on behalf of 24,000 junior doctors, bringing claims that the lead applicant is barred from seeking compensation for group members under industrial relations law.
New requirements that funded class actions be run as managed investment schemes will throw up myriad new questions for the courts, with lawyers predicting novel challenges by defendants and group members and an altered landscape for competing class actions.
A Victoria Supreme Court judge will hear the second ever application for a group costs order in a shareholder class action against G8 Education, saying she hoped to deal with the bid in a “straightforward way”.
An ancient history academic and lawyer has filed a class action against the federal government, claiming he and other postgraduate research candidates were underpaid by major Australian universities.
A judge has rejected an application by the plaintiffs in two class actions against Freedom Foods and Deloitte to run their cases side-by-side, but said she would have granted a bid to consolidate the proceedings had that been sought.
A judge has refused a bid by accounting firms Pitcher Partners and EY to access share trading data of unregistered group members in a securities class action over advice to Slater & Gordon, despite claims upcoming mediation will be “pointless” without the information.
While a first test case in NSW rejected insurers’ interpretation of infectious disease exclusions in COVID-19 business interruption policies, potentially putting the industry on the hook for billions of dollars in claims, QBE says the law is on its side in Victoria.
Supermarket giant Woolworths has denied the Fair Work Ombudsman is entitled to seek compensation for its underpayment of staff, saying its $330 million remediation to affected employees fully answers the regulator’s case.
Despite claims the $98 million settlement did not warrant a contradictor’s scrutiny, a judge has appointed a contradictor to represent the interests of group members in franchisee class actions against 7-Eleven as he weighs the deal.