Volkswagen is nearing the end of the road in the dieselgate scandal in Australia, as the car company agrees to an in-principle resoltion of enforcement action by the ACCC while also finalising the details of the settlement of five class actions worth up to $127 million.
The judge overseeing multiple class actions against Volkswagen over its dieselgate emissions scandal has said he will “need persuading” before reallocating the settlement approval to a different judge, because “that’s something that happens in Victoria”.
Boutique class action firm Bannister Law has been told “not to make too much noise” from its spot at “the back of the bus” in the VW dieselgate class actions, after its legal team flagged its intention to try and expedite the $127.1 million settlement approval process.
After four years of litigation, the Volkswagen diesel emissions class actions have reached an in-principle settlement of up to $127.1 million, with affected consumers expected to receive $1,400 per vehicle on average if 100 per cent participation is achieved.
The barrister leading an appeal seeking to revive Quinn Emanuel’s fees for no service class action against AMP has criticised the approach taken in the landmark GetSwift ruling on competing class actions, saying it placed the court in the role of auctioneer and actually encouraged duplicative proceedings.
The NSW Supreme Court has ordered the lead plaintiff in a class action over the Sydney light rail construction project to pay $1.25 million in security for costs to Transport for NSW ahead of discovery, which is expected to cost $2.26 million.
A class action against the Federal Government’s Airservices has been dismissed after a “fatal” ruling that group members were not covered by enterprise agreements they argued had better terms than their own individually negotiated contracts.
An appeals court has tossed a challenge to the dismissal of an investor class action against the Public Trustee of Queensland over a failure to predict the 2008 collapse of Gold Coast-based finance group Octaviar, finding that the class had run a case based on allegations outside of its claims.
Law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has told the court it will appeal a judgment permanently staying its shareholder class action against AMP over the wealth manager’s fees for no service scandal.
A hearing scheduled for later this year in several class actions and an ACCC proceeding over allegations Volkswagen installed dual-mode software in diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions tests has been postponed, despite cries of prejudice from the consumer regulator.