The publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times have lost an appeal of a $300,000 defamation award to cricketer Chris Gayle, despite the appeals court finding Gayle’s barrister had gone “too far” in his submissions to the jury.
Cereal giant Sanitarium and retailer Rebel Sports have lost their appeal against a decision of the NSW Supreme Court staying proceedings against a UK marketing company in a dispute over a $1.4 million joint promotional campaign.
An appeals court has dismissed a banned medical doctor’s challenge to the granting of three vexatious proceedings orders on constitutional grounds that the judge who made the orders was too old.
A Sydney community group has lost a last-minute challenge to the demolition of Allianz Stadium, with the Court of Appeal throwing the case out in a unanimous decision.
Two rulings Friday keeping alive the common fund order are a ringing endorsement by the courts of the important role that litigation funders play in class actions, experts say, and have paved the way for more funded post-Hayne consumer litigation against banks and other financial services firms this year.
Common fund orders in class actions are legal and not unconstitutional, six judges found Friday after a history-making joint sitting of two appeals courts.
Common fund orders are the completion of the notion of class actions envisaged when the regime was introduced 27 years ago, a joint-sitting of two appeals courts was told on the second and last day of a landmark challenge to what has become an oft-used case management tool by trial judges.
An appeal before a historic joint sitting of two courts over so-called common fund orders in class actions kicked off Monday with a full bench of six judges and a packed courtroom hearing arguments by eminent barristers for BMW and Westpac that the orders are either preemptive or pointless.