Payouts in class actions in 2020 largely kept pace with the previous year despite the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, with companies and other defendants paying more than $696 million to settle class actions last year.
Last-mile logistics software company GetSwift has ceased trading on the ASX after its relocation to Canada got the greenlight by the Federal Court and FIRB despite the company facing ongoing litigation in Australia.
Shareholders of collapsed vocational training company Vocation are poised to get about half of a $50 million settlement reached last month in a complex, long-running class action alleging the company failed to make adequate disclosures about its contracts with the Victorian Department of Education.
The Full Federal Court has tossed an appeal by Treasury Wine Estates claiming that Maurice Blackburn and barrister Guy Donnellan breached their obligations in preparing the pleadings in a current shareholder class action against the global winemaker.
Three days after launching a class action against Crown Resorts over potential anti-money laundering breaches revealed at a NSW gaming authority inquiry, Maurice Blackburn has said it will amend the pleadings in a separate shareholder class action against the casino giant using findings from the inquiry’s final report.
A Federal Court judge taking over a shareholder class action against IOOF Holdings from a recent High Court appointment has lamented the lack of progress in the case, which has been ongoing for nine months.
Arnold Bloch Leibler has hit back at a class action by Slater & Gordon shareholders accusing it of misleading and deceptive conduct and breaching its duty of care by greenlighting the law firm’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Quindell, filing cross-claims against Slater & Gordon and two of its former directors.
BHP Group Ltd has appealed a ruling allowing foreign group members to be part of a shareholder class action against the mining giant over the Fundao dam failure in Brazil five years ago.
Maurice Blackburn has hit Crown Resorts with a shareholder class action alleging the casino giant had lax anti-money laundering compliance systems in place over a six-year period.
The son of the funder behind a class action at the centre of scandalous misconduct claims says he would have sought advice from a family friend if he had realised his father and counsel leading the case were misleading the court to inflate their profits from a $64 million settlement.