An appeals court has rejected a challenge by a woman who said she was given negligent advice by her lawyers about two settlement offers which she rejected, finding that she would not have taken advice to accept the offers in any case.
A judge has ordered Seven West-owned publication The West Australian to pay a former public servant $180,000 in damages over an article about an allegation of fraud that had “a sensationalist overtone”.
Lawyers are allowed to take a cut from a class action settlement or judgment under a so-called solicitors’ common fund order, the Full Federal Court has ruled, saying they are a permissive use of the court’s power.
The Federal Court is set to become a more attractive forum for class actions now that the Full Court has confirmed it has power to make orders granting solicitors a contingency fee from any settlement or judgment in a group proceeding.
A unit of petrol store chain EG Australia has sued Ashurst and LegalVision alleging they breached their implied duty of care through advice given to Woolworths about the assignment of a disputed Sydney petrol station lease.
The corporate regulator has secrued orders barring fintech giant PayPal from enforcing a term in its contracts with small businesses that set a two-month deadline for complaints about excess fees.
A group member in a class action against Johnson & Johnson unit DePuy International has lost his bid to challenge his compensation determination 12 years after the case settled, with a judge finding that the independent counsel conducting the determination was not bound by the rules of procedural fairness.
In a contest to run a class action against International Capital Markets over risky derivative products, a proposed consolidated proceeding has taken aim at third-to-file Banton Group for allegedly copying its case.
Santos has largely succeeded in its bid for documents from the Environmental Defenders Office and expert witnesses in a failed case challenging the construction of the oil and gas company’s $5.6 billion Barossa pipeline.
Industrial technology company Delta Building Automation has appealed a $1.5 million penalty for attempting to rig a bid for construction work on the National Gallery of Australia, a penalty five times the amount it claimed it should face.