Whether judges can alter the terms of litigation funding agreements in class actions is a question that will remain unsettled for now, after litigation funder IMF Bentham chose to sidestep a lengthy, costly and risky challenge to the reach of the court’s powers.
The National Australia Bank faces the prospect of “significant monetary penalties” after self-reporting a potentially large number of money laundering and counter terrorism financing breaches to AUSTRAC and its overseas counterparts.
The former chief financial officer of Murray Goulburn has asked a judge to relieve him from any disqualification order sought by the corporate watchdog in its case over his alleged role in the milk supplier’s continuous disclosure breaches, saying he is already the subject of orders that ban him from the dairy industry.
Litigation funder Augusta Ventures has brought its promised appeal of a groundbreaking ruling that put it on the hook for paying security for costs in an employment class action over the classification of casual mine workers.
Construction firm Icon Co has pressed the Federal Court for an expedited hearing in its case against insurers Liberty Mutual Insurance and QBE over the 2018 Opal Tower disaster, saying it wants to resolve the matter before a class action brought by apartment owners in building progresses too far.
An average of 23 class actions have been filed every year in Australia since the class action regime was introduced in 1992, a number that belies recent claims of an explosion in litigation, a new report by a leading class action expert says.
Certain claims in a shareholder class action against insolvent training company Vocation and auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers have been dropped, as the long-running case awaits a new trial date pending the outcome of a separate Full Court appeal.
The two law firms leading a class action against Toyota over allegedly defective filters in the car giant’s diesel models will be able to recover the legal costs of only one firm, a judge has said.
Construction firm Icon Co has rejected QBE Underwriting’s argument that exclusion clauses in coverage for Sydney’s Opal Tower meant the insurer did not have to indemnity it after a series of major cracks in the building led to the evacuation of thousands of residents on Christmas Eve last year.
A class action against the NSW government over a contractor who took private details of 130 ambulance workers to on-sell to personal injury law firms, including Bannister Law, has settled.