Two rulings Friday keeping alive the common fund order are a ringing endorsement by the courts of the important role that litigation funders play in class actions, experts say, and have paved the way for more funded post-Hayne consumer litigation against banks and other financial services firms this year.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has suspended its timeline for announcing whether it will bless the proposed $15 billion merger of telco giants TPG and Vodafone Hutchison Australia, saying the parties have still not complied with its requests for information.
Judgments in two appeals challenging the legality of common fund orders issued by courts in class actions will be handed down this week, and the rulings could have a profound effect on how class actions are run by lawyers and their funders in the future.
A damages battle in an infringement case over two patents for the ubiquitous plastic produce containers found in grocery stores across Australia is over, with the fight settling ahead of a hearing.
The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union has lost a battle with liquidators for failed labour hire business One Key Workforce over access to $1 million it said was owed in unpaid wages only to its members.
The former chief financial officer forĀ Calvary Health Care has been convicted and sentenced after pleading guilty to making false records that misstated the company’s revenue by millions of dollars.
ASIC will soon have more ammunition to go after corporate wrongdoers, after the Senate passed legislation that arms the regulator to seekĀ harsher civil and criminal sanctions against banks, their executives and others that breach the corporate and financial services law.
The judge overseeing the marathon trial between agricultural giants Cargill and Viterra over the $420 million sale of malt producer Joe White has shot down objections to both parties’ expert reports related to whether it was common industry practice toĀ cheat customers by failing to comply with contract details and providing misleading malt test results.
Optus has been ordered to pay $10 million in penalties for billing unwitting customers for premium mobile phone services, the consumer regulator said Wednesday.
Accounting firm Pitcher Partners will challenge a ruling that it owes a NSW bus operator $5.6 million in damages for fraudulently concealing a costly amortisation error.