Boral’s former CEO Michael Kane can be questioned at trial over a reference he made in an email to findings by EY about the building material group’s poor performing US windows business, despite claims that the findings were privileged.
Citing the significant time and costs invested in the litigation, the applicant in the second filed class action over the collapse of Quintis wants his half of a $4.37 million settlement with the sandalwood producer to fund ongoing costs in what remains of the case.
A personal injury firm that lost out to a class action heavyweight in a contest to run a case against Toyota unit Hino has dropped its appeal and will wear the costs it incurred in bringing its case.
The High Court has agreed to step in to resolve division among Australia’s courts on the question of power to make orders that exclude unregistered group members from class action settlements.
A $13.5 million settlement has been reached in a Gadens-led class action against former Quintis director Frank Wilson, and the funder of a rival class action is preparing to seek a chunk of the sum in what a judge has called a “most unusual circumstance”.
A Gadens-led class action against former Quintis director Frank Wilson has settled, but a second class action filed by a rival firm has flagged a potential claim on the settlement funds over a cause of action said to have been “picked up parasitically”.
The High Court has been asked to overturn a NSW Court of Appeal decision finding it had no power to exclude unregistered group members from a settlement, which conflicted with Federal Court precedent, hearing the divergence of the important issue “can only be resolved by the High Court”.
The Full Federal Court has found the court’s recently-affirmed power to make common fund orders at settlement means the litigation funder that backed two class actions against 7-Eleven is entitled to a $24.5 million cut from a $98 million settlement, in a decision that slammed the parties for a settlement approval process that “went off the rails”, costing group members $2.5 million.
The NSW Court of Appeal has said it has no power to exclude group members who do not sign up to a class action from participating in a settlement, upholding a controversial decision that the Full Federal Court said was “plainly wrong”.
A judge hearing an appeal by a funder over its cut of a $98 million settlement in franchisee class actions against 7-Eleven has said the $12 million commission was “plainly too little”, and questioned if the class action judge had been “stuck” on the idea that common fund orders are bad.