The funders that bankrolled a securities class action against collapsed engineering firm RCR Tomlinson will ask the court to give them an $8 million cut of a $40 million settlement. A further $12 million in legal fees means shareholders will get 50 per cent of the settlement sum.
A judge has awarded carriage of a class action against Toyota unit Hino to Maurice Blackburn, finding that the law firm’s experience and resources trumped those of small personal injury firm Gerard Malouf & Partners, despite its alliance with a large US firm.
A judge has signed off on a class action settlement under which the Commonwealth Bank of Australia will pay a sum towards the applicant’s costs but group members will recover nothing.
An investor class action against Virgin Australia has mounted a new challenge to a contentious indemnity clause, which the airline claims entitles it to receive periodic payments for its legal costs in defending the claims.
A Melbourne law firm is facing a class action on behalf of former clients it represented in litigation over childhood sexual abuse claims.
The lead plaintiff in a class action over Sydney’s light rail construction, who is seeking a $3 million judgment, has brought a novel bid for the NSW government to pay a funder’s 40 per cent commission as damages, rather than as a deduction from the amount owed to group members.
Mitsubishi Motors has prevailed before the High Court in a challenge to a ruling that it breached the consumer laws by affixing a fuel efficiency label to its Tritons, in a decision that puts a dent in a class action on behalf of tens of thousands of drivers.
Group members will walk away with nothing under a settlement in a seven-year old class action against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia on behalf of borrowers who claimed they were forced to default on their commercial loans.
As Johnson & Johnson loses its second attempt to use bankruptcy protection to resolve tens of thousands of US cases over its talcum powder products, a law firm has launched a class action investigation on behalf of Australian women who regularly used the powder and were later diagnosed with cancer.
A judge’s decision to chop $810,000 from the funder’s cut of a settled class action against Westpac sounds a warning to class action litigators that when it comes to determining the size of a commission, case budgets matter.