Two rulings Friday keeping alive the common fund order are a ringing endorsement by the courts of the important role that litigation funders play in class actions, experts say, and have paved the way for more funded post-Hayne consumer litigation against banks and other financial services firms this year.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has suspended its timeline for announcing whether it will bless the proposed $15 billion merger of telco giants TPG and Vodafone Hutchison Australia, saying the parties have still not complied with its requests for information.
A judge’s decision imposing damages of over $2.8 million on a Melbourne computer retailer facing an intellectual property lawsuit by Microsoft has been slammed as “regrettable” and a judicial “failure,” in a judgment overturning the ruling.
The ACCC has signed off on waste management company Bingo’s proposed $578 million acquisition of waste collection and processing service Dial-a-Dump, with the regulator saying Bingo’s proposal to divest a waste processing facility alleviated its competition concerns.
Target Australia and Baby Bunting have agreed to pay penalties totalling $53,000 after being caught selling and marketing unsafe convertible strollers, the consumer watchdog said Wednesday.
The lead plaintiff in a class action alleging National Australia Bank pushed worthless credit card insurance onto its customers is disputing the bank’s claims that it had no power to negotiate the terms of the policies.
The ACCC his hinted at what could be a record year for competition matters, with ACCC Chairman Rod Sims vowing to refer more cartel investigations for criminal prosecution and promising cases against banks and construction companies are on the horizon.
AFT Pharmaceuticals has filed a lawsuit seeking to pre-empt competitor Reckitt Benckiser from pursuing a lawsuit against it over recent ads for its painkiller Maxigesic.
Unilever is not ready to put its long-running consumer case against competitor Beiersdorf to rest, filing a challenge to a ruling that Beiersdorf did not make misleading claims about its Nivea clinical strength deodorant products.
A Labor government would require the ACCC to conduct post-merger reviews to test claims made at the time the transaction was approved.