An appeals court has ordered a phosphate mining company owned by mining magnate Joseph Gutnik to pay back more than $225,000 owed to the Queensland state government or face immediate liquidation, accusing the company of showing a “cavalier attitude” towards earlier orders made by the court.
The government has won a victory following a lengthy trial in a class action brought on behalf of businesses alleging they were harmed when the Rudd Government cancelled a program that subsidised home insulation installations during the economic downturn.
Piper Alderman has urged a judge to excuse its “obviously accidental” breach of legal profession costs regulations in its Discovery Metals investor class action against KPMG, warning that group members could suffer detriment if its $3.5 million legal bill was not approved quickly.
The court has blocked a unit of Fortescue Metals Group from accessing emails sent by Squire Patton Boggs about a now disputed power purchase agreement, saying the communications are privileged.
Maurice Blackburn has partly prevailed in an appeal of a judge’s decision to put the brakes on its shareholder class action against BHP while greenlighting a competing case brought by Phi Finney McDonald, with an appeals court ordering the rival law firms to negotiate a deal to consolidate their litigation.
Oil company PTTEP has objected to Indonesian seaweed farmers using the word “oil” in their evidence in the Montarra oil spill class action, arguing they are not qualified to identify oil.
A judge has questioned whether he should approve the $3 million legal bill in the settled Discovery Metals shareholder class action against KPMG, amid concerns the plaintiff’s lawyers, Piper Alderman, breached legal profession regulations by failing to update their estimated costs.
Maurice Blackburn’s funding model rejected by a judge overseeing a beauty parade of class actions against BHP appeared structured to incentivise the firm to push up its legal fees, an appeals court said Monday on the first day of a high stakes hearing challenging a decision to shut down two of three competing cases against the mining giant.
A judge has signed off on the confidential settlement of a shareholder class action brought against KPMG relating to the failed $830 million hostile takeover of mining firm Discovery Metals, despite objections that the settlement process was “unfair and unjust”.
The former directors of collapsed mining company Termite Resources have appealed a ruling ordering them to pay $7 million in damages for allegedly breaching their duty by distributing more than $46 million to Termite’s parent company and failing to maintain a cash reserve of at least $10 million.