Deloitte is challenging a judge’s ruling that certain partners not be excused from an order to produce files of the accounting giant’s audit work for Hastie Group to shareholders in a class action over the construction company’s collapse, its latest move after a failed attempt to persuade the judge that a rogue partner had taken the only copies of the files and refused to give them back.
Class action experts have come to the defence of boutique law firm Phi Finney McDonald as heavyweight Maurice Blackburn appeals a judge’s ruling to choose the “less experienced” firm to lead a shareholder class action against BHP Billiton.
A judge has ordered auto components distributor Frontline Australasia to pay $1.1 million in damages after reproducing wire harnesses made by Lumen Australia without permission and supplying the unauthorised parts to car makers Mazda and Mitsubishi.
The Full Federal Court has expedited an appeal filed Christmas Eve by Sanofi-Aventis of a ruling that denied its bid to block Alphapharm from listing an insulin injector pen on the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme.
Tech giant Apple can move forward with its plans to register the “HealthKit” trade mark for its popular health and fitness tracking app after resolving a dispute with an Australian startup over the mark.
JP Morgan, the reported whistleblower behind a criminal cartel case against ANZ, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup over a $2.5 billion share placement, has won its bid to keep documents from a related ASIC probe confidential.
Last year was an exciting one for class action lawyers, with monumental court decisions on competing cases, cross-jurisdictional spats, proportionality in settlements and the power of judges to decide how a recovery is distributed. Here, top class action litigators tell us what the most significant rulings of 2018 were and why the decisions will continue to matter this year.
In a situation a judge has called “extraordinary and troubling”, Deloitte’s files on failed construction company Hastie — sought as evidence by shareholders in a class action — have vanished from the accounting giant’s locked ‘litigation room’ and are now in the control of a single partner who refuses to return them.
Generic drug giant Teva has filed a lawsuit seeking to have German pharmaceutical company Boehringer’s patent for an inhalation capsule, which is used to deliver the active drug in its blockbuster Spiriva asthma inhaler, declared invalid.
Hotel booking aggregator Trivago, which last month admitted to breaching the consumer laws over its travel accommodation rankings, has lost a bid to keep secret internal documents that detail why the company made changes to its website and rejigged its advertising.