The High Court’s ruling Wednesday that judges have no power to issue a common fund order in the initial phases of a class action does not bind them after a settlement has been reached, a Federal Court judge said Friday.
A judge has given the green light to a $1.5 million settlement in a long-running class action against ANZ alleging it slapped customers with illegal fees, with group members expected to get no more than $100 and potentially walking away with “substantially less” than this.
There is a “reasonable chance” that two shareholder class actions against failed electronics retailer Dick Smith will settle by February of next year, group members have learned.
The construction company behind Sydney’s Opal Tower has filed a cross claim seeking $30 million from structural architect WSP Structures over its allegedly faulty building design.
The end of the common fund order is a setback for class actions that will see a revival of the days of closed proceedings, costly bookbuilding, higher commission rates and the shelving of worthy but risky cases, experts say, and all eyes will now turn to state and federal governments to see how they respond to calls for legislative intervention.
More than a decade after the High Court ruled that third parties could finance legal proceedings in Australia, the court has issued another game changing decision that puts limits on what judges will do to help a litigation funder out. Here, Lawyerly gives you a quick guide to the key takeaways from Wednesday’s judgment.
Judges have no power to order all class action members to pay a proportion of a litigation funder’s commission out of their share of a settlement, the High Court has ruled in a landmark judgment that deals a huge defeat to litigation funders.
Fast food giant Domino’s has denied allegations that it violated consumer law with the representations it made to franchisees about the agreements its workers were covered under, saying it was only giving franchisees its opinion.
The close relationship between regulator action over corporate wrongdoing and private enforcement is an established and powerful means of recovering compensation for victims of corporate misconduct. Increased cooperation between regulators and litigants in class actions would remove a number of substantial barriers to private enforcement action, writes Slater and Gordon lawyer Caitlin Baker.
Clive Palmer and associated companies have been accused of unconscionable conduct and “moral obloquy” in a new $37.4 million class action by timeshare members of the billionaire’s now abandoned Palmer Coolum Resort.