Some of Australia’s biggest law firms were targeted by lawsuits in 2022, facing allegations of negligence or bad advice from clients, or else accused by their own partners of misconduct.
Cruise operator Carnival PLC has been ordered to pay compensation to a passenger who suffered a miscarriage after evacuating from a cruise ship, with a judge finding the ship’s doctor gave her bad medical advice.
Law firm Holding Redlich has been sued by the NSW Labor Party for allegedly providing negligent advice on $100,000 in illegal political donations delivered in an Aldi bag and the ICAC investigation that followed, setting the party back $1.8 million in legal costs.
Philips Electronics will not face a class action in Australia over recalled sleep apnea machines that contained a foam component that could degrade and cause consumers to inhale dangerous chemicals, after the law firm running the litigation decided to drop the case.
Relatives of race car driver Max Twigg are fighting Pitcher Partners’ bid to have a $127 million lawsuit dismissed as an abuse of process, rejecting the accounting firm’s argument that the proceedings were deliberately delayed for strategic reasons.
The High Court has unanimously dismissed Western Power’s challenge to a judgment which found the state-owned electricity supplier breached its duty of care to inspect power poles on private land and was partly liable for property damage from the 2014 Perth Hills bushfire.
Mining company Quantum Graphite has filed proceedings against accounting firm Grant Thornton over a 2020 report that caused the Australian Stock Exchange to suspend trading in the mining company’s securities for 14 months.
Accounting firm Pitcher Partners has hit back at a lawsuit by the former owner of fitness franchise Zap Fitness claiming the firm failed to properly advise on a troubled share buy-back scheme that spawned litigation the company paid $4.25 million to settle.
A judge has approved a $41 million settlement in a shareholder class action against Pitcher Partners but has reduced the funder’s cut to $11.5 million after resolving a feud with the lead applicant over how much it should receive for taking the case to trial.
A law firm, who along with Piper Alderman and one other firm, is being sued for negligence by a schoolteacher wrongly jailed for the indecent assault of two children has lost a bit to amend its defence at the commencement of the trial.