The plaintiffs in an investor class action filed against Dick Smith’s insurers want a separate hearing from four other representative and company proceedings against the failed electronics retailer, arguing there would be only the “thinnest basis” for concurrent proceedings if their strike out application was successful.
The defendants in the Sydney Opal Tower class action have been formally banned from contacting represented group members about their claims while the proceeding remains on foot, after communications were allegedly sent to apartment owners.
The hearing for a class action against National Australia Bank over allegedly worthless credit card insurance will focus on whether the bank’s allegedly unconscionable behaviour in selling these policies was systemic or confined to individual cases.
Japanese car maker Nissan is facing the threat of a class action in Australia over the continuously variable transmission in its Pathfinder sports utility vehicle, after recently settling five similar class actions in the US over the allegedly faulty transmissions.
Former Dick Smith executives Nick Abboud and Michael Potts have pointed the finger at the defunct electronics retailer’s other directors in response to cross claims by auditor Deloitte, which is named in two shareholder class actions over the company’s collapse.
The NSW government’s Sydney Olympic Park Authority, which is facing a class action brought by owners of apartments at the troubled Opal Tower, has laid the blame on the developer, designer and builder behind the project.
The law firm behind multiple government class actions over major construction projects, including the Sydney Light Rail proceeding, is investigating a new case against a Melbourne council after a major development allegedly left local businesses struggling to survive.
Against a backdrop of an industrial relations system which has diminished union and workers’ power, class actions are again re-emerging as an alternative tool to challenge employers’ unlawful conduct. And in the current class actions landscape, the ability to run closed class proceedings on behalf of union members, or otherwise offer alternative fee arrangements to non-members in open class proceedings, is essential to trade unions’ willingness to embrace the representative proceeding regime, writes Slater & Gordon lawyer Alex Blennerhassett.
The judge overseeing the Ethicon pelvic mesh class action has flagged serious public policy concerns stemming from class identification problems, amid fears that “poorer” patients in the public health system would be less likely to be notified of their rights compared to those in the private system.
Lawyers pursuing a class action against Scenic Tours on behalf of passengers whose European cruises were interrupted by severe flooding have been granted preliminary discovery as they weigh a second multi-million dollar class action against the company over cancellations caused by last year’s severe drought conditions.