Class Actions

The Federal Court is set to become a more attractive forum for class actions now that the Full Court has confirmed it has power to make orders granting solicitors a contingency fee from any settlement or judgment in a group proceeding.

OTR Group’s network of Smokemart and Giftbox stores face a potential class action that would allege the chains breached employment laws by depriving workers of breaks during shifts.

A group member in a class action against Johnson & Johnson unit DePuy International has lost his bid to challenge his compensation determination 12 years after the case settled, with a judge finding that the independent counsel conducting the determination was not bound by the rules of procedural fairness.   

In a contest to run a class action against International Capital Markets over risky derivative products, a proposed consolidated proceeding has taken aim at third-to-file Banton Group for allegedly copying its case. 

PricewaterhouseCoopers has agreed to pay $8.25 million to settle a class action on behalf of Axsesstoday bondholders over an allegedly misleading bond prospectus, bringing the settlement total to $9.5 million after a group of insurers agreed to pay $1 million to settle the class action’s claims.

Generic drug maker Mayne Pharma has resolved a shareholder class action centred on disclosures connected to price-fixing claims by US regulators.

Nine will pay $3 million to settle a class action over its coverage of litigation related to the 2004 Palm Island riots, it has been revealed, after the class action failed to suppress the settlement sum.

The lead applicants are seeking to drop a class action against the Northern Territory government over its alleged failure to properly fund essential health services and interpreting services in remote Indigenous communities.

A class action on behalf of Axsesstoday bondholders has reached a settlement with accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, with a court hearing that group members will get almost 50 per cent of the proceeds. 

Sydney-based plastic surgeon Daniel Lanzer and several of his associates have objected to a class action’s eighth attempt at getting its claims over allegedly negligent cosmetic procedures right, saying the plaintiffs were engaged in a “continuing cycle of propagating versions” of their case.