Judges

A judge has shaved $80,000 off the damages recently awarded to a Papua New Guinea politician who sued Fairfax Media over a series of articles published in the Australian Financial Review, after finding she wrongly discounted a mitigation defence by the publisher.

A judge has approved a $12 million payment to the funder of two franchisee class actions against 7-Eleven, even as the funder plans to appeal a decision rejecting its bid for a common fund order for a $24.5 million commission.

The Albanese government will urge the court to shut down a Shine Lawyers-led class action against McDonald's for allegedly denying workers rest breaks and allow a similar $250 million case by the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association to proceed instead.

A judge has largely approved the funder's commission and legal fees to be deducted from a $192.5 million settlement of a class action against oil company PTTEP, despite the costs halving the amount to go to group members.

A judge has ordered a litigation funder and the lead applicant in a settled class action to personally mediate a stoush over expenses, saying he doubted the applicant's $1.2 million claim and said the court is "not a place for their sport”.

A judge has questioned a bid by Independent Monique Ryan’s chief of staff Sally Rugg to keep her job until her lawsuit against the MP is resolved, as the court released documents detailing the breakdown in the working relationship between the women.

A law firm has won its second bid for a group costs order in three class actions against banks over flexible commission schemes after a judge in 2021 rejected what was then the first-ever application for a contingency fee.

A decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal that reproduced almost entirely verbatim and without attribution the submissions of the prevailing party as its own reasons damages the public's trust in the AAT and must be overturned, a court has ruled.

Extended settlement talks in a Fair Work suit brought by the chief of staff to Independent MP Monique Ryan have failed, and lawyers for Sally Rugg will seek to add claims of serious contraventions to what they say is a test case for determining 'reasonable' overtime.

The Daily Mail has argued that Nine sports presenter Erin Molan should be stripped of a $150,000 defamation damages award because of her history of “seriously egregious conduct” on 2GB’s Continuous Call Team radio show.