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.
Recent changes to the law requiring funded class actions to be registered as managed investment schemes have complicated the question of how best to resolve the multiplicity issue in two class actions brought against Freedom Foods and Deloitte.
Avant Insurance has lost a bid to pause an order that it pay $371,000 in the legal costs of a surgeon facing a class action by breast implant patients of defunct clinic the Cosmetic Institute while the insurer’s appeal is pending.
A judge has vacated a March hearing in a class action against cruise operator Carnival over last year’s Ruby Princess COVID-19 outbreak, a week after resolving an almost year-long dispute about whether overseas passengers could be part of the proceeding.
A ruling this week that rejected the first application for a group costs order in a class action because the applicants were better off with their existing no win, no fee arrangement was the right decision given the limits of the legislation, experts say.
Federal environment minister Sussan Ley has approved a controversial coal mining project that is expected to release 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere, despite a landmark ruling that the government has a duty of care to consider the impact of fossil fuel projects on the next generation of Australians.
Insurance broker JLT Risk Solutions has opposed an application by a group of NSW councils to add misleading and deceptive conduct allegations to a long-running class action, claiming the changes would force the vacation of a five-week trial due to start in October.