Qantas should pay a penalty of the “highest order” for outsourcing its ground crew staff during the COVID pandemic, a union has argued, while a judge has questioned if he needs to send a message that “you can’t play the court for a fool”.
Qantas has reached an agreement to pay $120 million in compensation to 1,800 ground crew staff who were found to have been illegally sacked.
Years of hard fought litigation by axed Qantas ground crew and generic drug maker Sandoz ended in victory this week, thanks to legal eagles from Maurice Blackburn and Ashurst and their counsel. The week opened with a bang with a decision from Federal Court Justice Michael Lee in three landmark test cases by the Transport…
A court has approved a $100 million penalty and another $20 million payment in compensation for Qantas customers after the airline admitted to selling tickets on cancelled flights.
Qantas argues it has “no legal responsibility” to compensate baggage handlers who, the High Court has found, the airline unlawfully sacked and replaced with contractors, partly to prevent them from engaging in industrial action.
The law firm behind a class action over cancelled Qantas flights has confirmed the case continues despite a $120 million settlement with the consumer regulator, and has called on the airline to follow through on its pledge to restore customers’ confidence.
A judge has refused to allow a female pilot to bring claims that Qantas engaged in sex discrimination because it had a culture that was “hostile to women”, saying that while the ‘vibe’ of a claim might suffice in the court of public opinion, it could not survive in a court of record.
Qantas will pay a $100 million penalty and another $20 million in compensation in a settlement of the ACCC’s so-called ghost flights case that includes an admission by the airline that it engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in selling tickets for cancelled flights.
A judge has chided the Transport Workers Union for announcing at the start of trial that it intends to seek lost union dues from Qantas, as a hearing kicked off over the amount of compensation the airline owes to ground crew, whose jobs were illegally outsourced at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A judge has ordered Qantas to hand over instructions it gave to its solicitors at Herbert Smith Freehills that underpinned advice over the airline’s decision to sack 1,700 ground crew during the COVID-19 pandemic.