A Federal Court judge has ordered that a referee consider how junior barristers were used in assessing the legal costs in an insurance class action against Westpac which the bank has agreed to pay up to $30 million to settle.
A judge has urged parties in a class action against Westpac over superannuation fees to hold an in-person mediation, saying that success rates have “plummeted” during the COVID-19 pandemic as more settlement talks are held virtually.
The federal government has been hit with a class action on behalf of up to 6,000 Indigenous Australians seeking compensation for their forcible removal from their families in the Northern Territory from 1910 to the 1970s.
Westpac has agreed to pay up to $30 million to settle a long-running class action over allegedly excessive insurance premiums which included a trip to the High Court that resulted in common fund orders being struck down in the early stages of class actions.
A judge has found he has power to order that opt out notices be sent to a limited number of Boral shareholders eligible to join two class actions that faced off last month in a class action beauty parade.
Monash Health and LaTrobe Regional Health Service have been hit with a class action on behalf of junior doctors in Victoria who allege they were denied pay for overtime hours worked over the past six years, the second underpayments class action filed by junior doctors in the state.
The trustee of Mayfair Group’s collapsed IPO Wealth Fund has denied claims in a class action that it misled investors who lost $86 million when the fund was wound up, and says it is fully indemnified for the class action’s claims under an agreement with the fund.
NSW Health has hit back at a class action accusing it of failing to pay overtime hours to junior doctors, saying that because they did not submit an overtime claim they were taken to have worked the additional hours “of their own volition”.
Hoping to avoid a lengthy trial like the 89-day hearing in the pelvic mesh class action against Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon, a judge has suggested splitting up a class action hearing over TFS Manufacturing and IVS pelvic mesh products to focus on the question of the devices’ safety and efficacy first.
A $138 million class action settlement with IAG over alleged junk insurance will go ahead after a judge found he was “bereft” of power to vary his prior approval judgment and include late opt out bids by group members that threatened to derail the agreement last month.