Justice Thomas Thawley

While it was unfair for a judge to pick Gilbert + Tobin to run a class action against Jaguar Land Rover on the condition that it lower its funding rate, the judge was entitled to consider the law firm’s experience in a similar case against Toyota, an appeals court has said in its reasons. 

A decision awarding carriage to Gilbert + Tobin in a class action against Jaguar Land Rover on the condition that it lower its funding rate lacked procedural fairness, the Full Court has found, prompting the firm to team up with its competitor to run the case. 

The University of Sydney has succeeded in a challenge to a finding that an academic was unfairly dismissed after posting to social media a controversial slide of a Nazi swastika superimposed on the Israeli flag, with a majority appeals court finding his union failed to prove the “incendiary” conduct accorded with the standards that entitled him to intellectual freedom.

Billabong founder Gordon Merchant has lost his challenge to a decision by the ATO to increase his tax liability to $31 million, finding that he conducted a “wash sale” of his Billabong shares and engaged in dividend stripping on the sale of bio plastics manufacturer Plantic Technologies. 

In a highly unusual move, the applicant in an employment class action against hospitality giant Merivale has reneged on an $18 million settlement, saying a jump in group member registration since the deal was struck means the sum would no longer win court approval.

A judge has signed off on a $16 million settlement in a class action against Dixon Advisory, but the funder of a competing case that was stayed after losing a beauty parade has earned a fragment of the $1 million it sought from the resolution sum.

A hearing in a class action to determine the extent of lost sales suffered by cattle exporters following a ban on live exports has been set down for April next year, making the case the oldest unresolved class action on the Federal Court docket.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has been sued by an employee who alleges the accounting firm is vicariously liable for an alleged sexual assault by a co-worker after an end-of-financial-year work party.

A funder that bankrolled a class action that was stayed against Dixon Advisory has argued it should receive $969,000 from a $16 million settlement reached in the competing proceedings that went ahead, saying its costs were spent to protect group members’ interests.

A judge has rejected sweeping suppression orders sought by the founders of vitamin giant Nature’s Care over documents in a $200 million tax debt stoush with the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation, instead making limited suppression orders in light of the “serious” allegations made in the case.