The Full Court Federal Court has declined to answer a question posed by 7-Eleven as to whether common fund orders can be made on settlement or judgment in a class action, saying the issue should be dealt with on facts, not assumptions. In a judgment handed down on Tuesday, the Full Court dismissed 7-Eleven’s bid…
Lawyers from three newspapers being sued by war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith for defamation are seeking sensitive documents alleged to show the former soldier asked his wife to lie about an affair.
The NSW Court of Appeal has passed on the question of whether a judge can make a common fund order when a class action settles to ensure a certain return to litigation funders, but the issue is not going away, whatever the Federal Court’s decision in a parallel case.
The High Court majority’s reasoning in the decision nixing common fund orders at an early stage of a class action leads “inexorably and inevitably” to the conclusion that there is no power to make such an order at any time in a proceeding, counsel for 7-Eleven has told an appeals court.
Luxury car maker BMW has told the NSW Court of Appeal that the courts do not have power to make common fund orders at any stage of a group proceeding, arguing that such orders would distort the scope of the class action regime by encouraging litigation funders to pursue lawsuits.
Hungry Jack’s is doubling down on its claim that its ‘Big Jack’ burger has 25 per cent more beef than rival McDonald’s ‘Big Mac’, denying the US fast food company’s allegation that its beefier burger brag, made in a recent cheeky television ad, is misleading and deceptive.
A showdown over two competing class actions against AMP is set down for December, and the applicants will have to persuade the judge overseeing the cases that they should not be consolidated.
Maurice Blackburn is looking at potentially expanding its shareholder class action against Crown Resorts after it emerged at the NSW gaming authority inquiry that the casino giant may have breached anti-money laundering laws.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has been fined $150,000 after a Federal Court judge found the bank had breached the law by increasing a problem gambler’s credit card limit but that the conduct was “not systematic, deliberate or covert”.
A judge due to hear a high profile appeal by Johnson & Johnson unit Ethicon has expressed confusion about the grounds on which the medical device maker is challenging a landmark judgment putting it on the hook for potentially hundreds of million of dollars in damages over faulty pelvic mesh implants.