IOOF subsidiary Australian Executor Trustees has been hit with an $80.6 million judgment after breaching its duty as trustee in the sale of a 42,000 hectare timber plantation by collapsed forestry giant Gunns Group, and it can’t pass the liability on to Spark Helmore, despite the law firm’s inadequate advice.
A judge has indicated he will approve a confidential settlement in a class action brought by a litigation guardian of young Indigenous Australian detainees against the Northern Territory Government alleging human rights abuses.
This month’s decision by the Queensland Supreme Court confirming the validity of the class action funding business model in jurisdictions whose legislatures have not abolished the tort of maintenance and champerty is a landmark one, writes Piper Alderman partners Greg Whyte and Lillian Rizio.
James Cook University has followed through on its promise to appeal a $1.2 million judgment awarded against it for the unfair dismissal of physics professor and climate skeptic Peter Ridd.
The CFMEU has successfully challenged an interim Fair Work Commission order barring workers at stevedoring firm DP World from ‘go slow’ industrial action after an appeals panel found a commissioner had no power to make the original order because she miscalculated, by 7.5 hours, when she could make it.
The plaintiffs firms running rival shareholder class actions against construction giant Lendlease have pitched a proposal to join their competing cases, a plan that should find favour with the judge overseeing the cases, who recently forced the consolidation of three duplicate class actions against failed engineering firm RCR Tomlinson.
The High Court has cleared the way for victims of a rubbish tip fire that tore through 17,000 acres of farmland in the NSW Riverina to claim more than $20 million in damages in a class action, after rejecting an appeal bid by the local council.
The Queensland Supreme Court has upheld the legality of litigation funding agreements in a landmark class action judgment that could have a ripple effect across other states in Australia.
Law firm Holding Redlich has defended national managing partner Ian Robertson against allegations by NSW Labor Party general secretary Kaila Murnain that the lawyer advised her to keep quiet about a $100,000 illegal political donation.
The Queensland Supreme Court judge has refused to transfer proceedings by villa owners against Clive Palmer’s abandoned Sunshine Coast resort to the Federal Court, but has also rejected a separate bid by Palmer to shut down the case, which has been dormant for six years.