Businesses bringing a class action over Sydney’s $3 billion light rail project are pursuing a bold new claim that the NSW government pay not only for damages related to their nuisance claims, but for the 40 percent commission the litigation’s funder wants from a post-trial judgment.
The High Court has granted special leave to Irish insurer Zurich to challenge a decision allowing a class action over an allegedly defective New Zealand apartment block to proceed in the NSW Supreme Court.
The litigation funder bankrolling a class action on behalf of 383 apartment owners in Sydney’s troubled Opal Tower is seeking a 26 per cent commission totalling $13.2 million of the confidential settlement sum, a court has heard.
The New South Wales government has rejected a class action’s claims that it dropped the ball in relation to the identification and management of underground utilities which caused delays in Sydney’s $3 billion light rail project.
A class action on behalf of 3,500 business owners along Sydney’s light rail route has told a court that group members bore the brunt of the project’s delayed construction, described as “a train wreck which could be predicted from a mile away”.
Lendlease and other major builders have secured a significant victory in a long-running case brought by the liquidators of failed engineering company Hastie Group, with a judge saying Hastie wasn’t entitled to the proceeds of bank guarantees withdrawn by the builders when it collapsed 10 years ago.
Queensland crane company NQCranes has agreed to pay a $1 million penalty in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s case alleging it engaged in a conspiracy with a multinational rival to divide the Brisbane and Newcastle markets.
A judge has rejected a bid to add an insolvent trading claim to a $78 million class action over the collapse of Walton Construction, citing “extraordinary” delays in the three-year-old case.
In a boost to shareholder class actions, the High Court has dismissed an application by engineering services firm Worley to appeal a finding that companies should disclose to the market forecasts that ought reasonably to have been held.
Thomson Geer has snagged a construction disputes specialist from Clayton Utz to bolster its growing construction team in Sydney.