A settlement has been reached in a class action against a Sydney-based financial advisory firm by a group of Chinese investors over a property investment and visa scheme that allegedly saw group members lose $14.5 million in funds.
A Victoria Supreme Court judge hearing two competing class actions against Allianz Australia over “junk” insurance has asked the parties for feedback on what she should consider at a hearing on a request for a group costs order, which would allow the plaintiff lawyers to earn a cut of any settlement or judgment, the first such request made since Victoria legalised contingency fees.
Shareholders who lost a Federal Court trial in their class action against engineering company Worley are challenging the decision to dismiss the case.
Mining services company Thiess has lost its challenge to a class action ruling which found the company had underpaid workers for time spent on the bus travelling home from a Pilbara-based liquefied natural gas processing plant owned by Woodside Energy.
Insurer Liberty Mutual is challenging its loss in a coverage dispute with construction company Icon Co over $31 million in losses stemming from Sydney’s Opal Tower, whose residents were evacuated after cracks appeared in the tower’s walls on Christmas Eve in 2018.
A former director of defunct financial services company Linchpin Capital, who is facing a class action as well as civil penalty proceedings by ASIC, can’t put the brakes on his challenge to a five-year disqualification order by the regulator.
The parties in a class action against the Federal Government over the controversial Robodebt scheme have reached an in principle settlement as the first day of a highly anticipated hearing was scheduled to kick off.
Class action filings in the Victoria Supreme Court have more than doubled in 2020, a trend that’s likely to hold as law firms take advantage of a new law allowing them to earn contingency fees for running successful class actions.
The class members in the Gladstone Fisheries class action and their funder LCM Operations have successfully upheld in the Court of Appeal a declaration confirming the enforceability of the funding agreements in the case. This is an important decision, which validates the third party funding of class actions and puts to bed any residual arguments regarding the continuing effect of the medieval torts of maintenance and champerty on class action funding arrangements, says Susanna Taylor, LCM’s head of investment, APAC.
Two class actions on behalf of 7-Eleven franchisees plan to expand their case against the convenience store chain by adding new allegations of systemic unconscionable conduct.