A judge has found that a litigation funder’s involvement in settlement negotiations without the presence of the applicant’s lawyers in a shareholder class action against Spotless Group, which recently settled for $95 million, was “inappropriate”.
Freedom Foods and its auditor Deloitte are facing a class action investigation after a bombshell announcement of more than $590 million in write-downs stemming from accounting irregularities stretching back several years.
The son of the lawyer and funder at the centre of an alleged fee scandal in the Banksia Securities class action was not his father’s righthand man because the late Mark Elliott did not need a righthand man, his co-accused, former senior barrister Norman O’Bryan, has told a court.
A judge has again postponed signing off on a $1.9 million settlement in a $65 million sham contracting class action against fundraiser Appco Group after expressing “disquiet” about the deal in which the 1,100 group members would get “diddly squat” and ordered that notices be sent to group members informing them of their option to seek alternative lawyers.
A $50 million settlement has been reached in a long-running shareholder class action against defunct vocational training company Vocation that also spawned multiple cross-claims against the failed company’s auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, law firm Johnson Winter & Slattery and individual directors.
A unit of telecommunications contractor Tandem has lost an appeal in its fight over the validity of a sham contracting class action by technicians alleging they were misclassified as contractors and wrongly denied benefits.
A judge has confined the scope of questions lawyers can ask disgraced senior barrister Norman O’Bryan when he takes the stand this week to give evidence for the son of the mastermind behind an alleged fee scam in the Banksia Securities class action.
Mining giant BHP has lost a fight to keep foreign group members out of a shareholder class action over the Fundao dam failure in Brazil five years ago.
Treasury Wine Estates has accused plaintiffs law firm Maurice Blackburn and barrister Guy Donnellan of “taking advantage” of their privileged position by using evidence discovered in a settled class action to file a second case against the wine maker.
A judge has indicated she will approve GetSwift’s plans to relocate to Canada, despite concerns raised by ASIC, but will wait until the company has received approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.