A Federal Court judge has predicted class action defendants will start arguing law firms cannot cooperate in running class actions, after a different judge hearing a case against Google recently remarked that such arrangements could be anti-competitive.
A class actions expert has found there has been a spike in contingency fee rates in Victoria over the last two years, expressing concerns that the regime enacted in 2020 may be going in a different way than intended.
A judge has approved a 33 per cent group costs order in a class action against Sportsbet, saying the relatively high rate was justified by the risks of running the “relatively novel case”, which seeks repayment of gambling losses stemming from allegedly unlawful services.
Industrial technology company Delta Building Automation has lost its fight over a $1.5 million penalty for attempting to rig a bid for construction work on the National Gallery of Australia.
An appeals court has dismissed BlueScope Steel’s challenge to a decision finding it engaged in attempted price-fixing and was on the hook for a record $57.5 million penalty.
A judge has recused himself from hearing a ‘sham contracting’ case against Uber because he previously represented the rideshare giant in four similar matters when he was a barrister.
Following the failure of two class actions to prove market-based loss from the Commonwealth Bank’s disclosure breaches, the bank is fighting the class actions’ bid to pursue individual ‘no transaction’ cases, saying they were “trying to keep something alive that is truly dead”.
Insurance giant Suncorp faces a class action investigation on behalf of millions of home and car insurance customers who were allegedly misled about their premiums and charged a so-called loyalty tax.
A judge has signed off on Westpac’s $130 million settlement in a class action over flexible commissions paid to car dealers, bringing to an end three cases brought by Maurice Blackburn against lenders.
A judge has found that builder DT Infrastructure’s application for adjudication of a $22 million payment claim against Downer EDI was discharged by Downer paying off a smaller claim of less than $1 million, which was the only amount expressly referred to in DTI’s application.
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