Supporting KPMG’s bid to move a class action over the collapse of Arrium from Melboure to Sydney, former directors of the failed steel company have told the High Court the Victoria Supreme Court was impermissibly preferring the policy of its state in finding a contingency fee order made in the case could be factored into a transfer application.
The Northern Territory public housing authority has moved to throw out a class action’s claims that it engaged in racial discrimination by failing to maintain public housing in remote Aboriginal communities.
The Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court has expressed concerns about a “slide in public respect” for institutions such as the court and the creeping phenomenon of “truth decay”.
Victoria Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes’ interference in a Fire Rescue Victoria union dispute was not “unlawful, unconscionable or illegitimate”, despite the AG overstepping her statutory authority, a judge has found.
A judge hearing a defamation case over a podcast by The Australian about the murder of Shandee Blackburn has granted a bid by a News Corp unit for a pre-trial hearing to determine whether acquitted suspect John Peros suffered serious harm from the podcast.
Victorian Liberal Party leader John Pesutto has settled two defamation lawsuits by organisers of the ‘Let Women Speak Rally’ and apologised for conflating them with neo-Nazis who crashed the event, saying his comments “could have more clearly differentiated between the groups”.
A judge has expressed concerns about the plaintiff’s proposed group costs order rate in a shareholder class action against fleet management company FleetPartners, saying the purpose of the GCO regime was to lower costs to group members.
A barrister who had a “close personal relationship” with a judge presiding over her case has been suspended and fined $10,000, after the High Court ruled their communications gave rise to the appearance of bias and justified recusal.
Collapsed construction and maintenance company General Trade Industries has lost its bid to revive abandoned claims against AGL in a nearly four-year old contract case over work on two Queensland gas plants, with a judge finding the company has had “more than a sufficient opportunity to plead its case”.
The funder behind two class actions against Uber, which have settled for $272 million, stands to make a tidy sum if the settlement holds up at a court approval hearing.