A finding this week that Norton Rose Fulbright intentionally misled a former lawyer in an employment dispute and abused the court’s processes threatens the legal career of an equity partner at the firm and is a warning to all firms to think twice before representing themselves in cases involving soured professional relationships.
The recent appointments to the High Court have mystified some senior members of the bar, raising questions about the secretive nature of the process and prompting renewed calls for an independent judicial appointments panel to expose the selection process to the light of day.
Federal Court Justices Jacqueline Gleeson and Simon Steward are safe and steady appointments to the High Court that are unlikely to disrupt the current culture of the bench and do nothing to assuage concerns about the opacity of the selection process.
A judge’s decision to throw out a shareholder class action against engineering company Worley is a loss for plaintiffs lawyers and could result in fewer listed companies willing to settle cases alleging they breached their disclosure obligations, but the ruling is not likely to have a significant chilling effect on securities litigation.
Barrister Norman O’Bryan has accepted that he should be struck from the roll of legal practitioners after dropping his defence mid-trial against claims of professional misconduct as senior counsel for a class action financed by the late Mark Elliott, but the consequences for the once high-flying silk might not end there.
The settlement arrangement resolving five class actions against Volkswagen, which carved out hefty legal fees from the $120 million payout to drivers, could become more prevalent as the spotlight is once again trained on the cost of class actions. But the approach is not without controversy, experts say.
A new parliamentary inquiry into the class action regime in Australia will go ahead as planned, Attorney-General Christian Porter said Wednesday, a move backed by defence firms as strongly as it was denounced by lawyers for plaintiffs.
A decision this week rejecting a proposed common fund order at the settlement approval stage of a class action against teleco Vocus has dashed the hopes of litigation funders that a recent High Court ruling would not foreclose on judges using discretion at the end of a case and will cement a return to bookbuilding and a focus on shareholder class actions by institutional investors.
A ruling Wednesday that struck down class closure orders — a device used by judges in class actions for the past two decades — has split the courts in Australia and is expected to head to the High Court.
The power of courts to choose a single winner from a contest of competing class actions is not the likely target of the High Court in taking up a challenge to last year’s beauty parade of shareholder proceedings against AMP, but the analysis behind the decision to award Maurice Blackburn the prize could face scrutiny, experts say.