There is no reason to believe that in the absence of procedural or legislative reform, class actions will not continue to be unduly protracted and prohibitively expensive. Here are 10 reform proposals to better facilitate access to justice, writes barrister and UNSW adjunct professor of law, Dr Peter Cashman.
In this 33rd year of class actions, three significant milestones have been achieved by Australia’s class action regimes, writes expert Professor Vince Morabito.
Lawyerly will be closed from 24 December until 6 January.
In the appeal that uncovered the Banksia class action scam I was a lawyer for – and the son of – the group member who dared to object to the $64 million settlement. What followed came to be known as the darkest chapter in Victoria’s legal history, but have we really learned our lesson?
Lawyerly will be closed from December 25 until January 8.
Following the decision of Justice Michael Lee in the Ethicon class actions appointing settlement administrators we published an article entitled ‘Winner of J&J class action settlement gig beats back challenger’.
With the passage of the Respect@Work and Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bills before Christmas this year, the Federal Government will have done more to make workplaces fairer and safer for women than years of platitudes from their predecessors, says Maurice Blackburn’s Mackenzie Wakefield and Patrick Turner.
The ACCC has secured its first enforcement outcome related solely to the concerted practices provisions of the competition law, in a case that shows the watchdog is willing to take action to prevent what it sees as anti-competitive practices that include sharing sensitive price information, write Gilbert + Tobin’s Jeremy Jose, Sarah Lynch and Katie Latham.
The public and political response to the Optus incident, including the federal government’s announcement of urgent privacy law reform, suggests there may now be an appetite to test obstacles to data breach class actions, or for the government to legislate around them, say Allens lawyers Kate Austin, Valeska Bloch, Isabelle Guyot and Andrew Burns.
A full bench of the Fair Work Commission has reversed a decision that would have allowed employees who were lawfully demoted to challenge their demotions as unfair dismissals, in a significant finding that means employers will not be exposed to claims if they properly exercise their rights, writes McCullough Robertson’s Amber Sharp, Kerry O’Brien and Nathan Roberts.