A judge has found that a litigation funder’s involvement in settlement negotiations without the presence of the applicant’s lawyers in a shareholder class action against Spotless Group, which recently settled for $95 million, was “inappropriate”.
The son of the lawyer and funder at the centre of an alleged fee scandal in the Banksia Securities class action was not his father’s righthand man because the late Mark Elliott did not need a righthand man, his co-accused, former senior barrister Norman O’Bryan, has told a court.
A $50 million settlement has been reached in a long-running shareholder class action against defunct vocational training company Vocation that also spawned multiple cross-claims against the failed company’s auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, law firm Johnson Winter & Slattery and individual directors.
A judge has confined the scope of questions lawyers can ask disgraced senior barrister Norman O’Bryan when he takes the stand this week to give evidence for the son of the mastermind behind an alleged fee scam in the Banksia Securities class action.
Mining giant BHP has lost a fight to keep foreign group members out of a shareholder class action over the Fundao dam failure in Brazil five years ago.
Treasury Wine Estates has accused plaintiffs law firm Maurice Blackburn and barrister Guy Donnellan of “taking advantage” of their privileged position by using evidence discovered in a settled class action to file a second case against the wine maker.
A judge has indicated she will approve GetSwift’s plans to relocate to Canada, despite concerns raised by ASIC, but will wait until the company has received approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.
A judge has vacated a seven-week trial in proceedings brought by ASIC against two former Rio Tinto executives to March or April 2022, after they requested a “lengthy delay” to ensure a COVID-19 vaccine would be available before they travel to Australia for trial.
Last-minute discovery of emails by the solicitor facing accusations of complicity in a fraudulent scheme by his father and the barristers leading a class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities has been labelled a “professional disgrace” that has twice delayed his trial.
The judge overseeing a trial over alleged misconduct by lawyers behind the Banksia class action has blasted a bid by disgraced senior counsel Norman O’Bryan to file a notice of proportionate liability ahead of his turn in the witness stand, saying the notice flew in the face of the barrister’s decision to concede defeat in the case.