A judge has called for an expert panel in a shareholder class action against life sciences company Sirtex related to sales of its liver cancer treatment that is headed for trial in May. Federal Court Justice Bernard Murphy ordered that the expert conclave between economic expert for the class, Gregory Houston, and Sirtex expert John…
A 2014 bushfire sparked by a termite-infested electrical pole that destroyed 57 homes was the fault of sub-contractor Thiess Services and the owner of the land on which the pole sat, a court has found.
The lead applicant in an $84 million class action against labour hire company WorkPac has been given the green light to intervene in an appeal that will clarify the definition of casual work for Australian employers.
A court has dismissed an application for a common fund order in a class action against Westpac, saying the applicant in the Maurice Blackburn-led action had failed to sufficiently detail the case and had “shirked” its responsibility by launching the proceedings with a concise statement alone.
Labour hire company WorkPac has asked the court to dismiss an $84 million class action brought on behalf of thousands of casual mine workers alleging they were misclassified and denied annual leave and other entitlements.
Banking giant Westpac has criticised Maurice Blackburn for rushing to file the first class action in the wake of the banking royal commission’s scathing final report, saying the self-appointed leading class action firm should know how to properly commence proceedings.
In a first for the NSW Supreme Court, Judge Peter Garling last week found that the plaintiff in a class action does not need to have a claim against all defendants, a case that could make life much easier for plaintiff lawyers, says barrister Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz of Second Floor Wentworth Chambers.clas
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, facing cross-claims by credit ratings agency Fitch in a class action alleging it gave false or misleading double A and triple A ratings to synthetic CDOs backed by Sigma Financial, told investors Fitch’s withdrawal of Sigma’s credit rating prior to the collapse of the $27 billion investment fund was a “technical” issue, the bank has admitted.
Trial in a shareholder class action against engineering company WorleyParsons will be heard by a new judge in late August, six months after it was unexpectedly vacated.
The Chief Justice of the Federal Court wants four referees to weigh what’s expected to be voluminous expert evidence in three class actions against the Commonwealth of Australia over exposure to allegedly toxic foam used on a government military bases, saying with 60 class actions pending in the Federal Court, devoting a single judge to the case for months on end should be a “mechanism of last resort”.