Lawyerly’s Litigation Firms of 2020 delivered significant victories for clients last year in bet-the-company matters, thriving in a tumultuous year that saw courts and litigants adapt to virtual trials and other new norms that are sure to outlast the COVID-19 pandemic.
An account director for Oracle is suing the tech company alleging he was fired for making complaints about one of his superiors who allegedly told him he had “zero EQ” and “an innate ability to annoy and anger people”.
Drug giant Merck Sharp & Dohme has brought a cross appeal in its long-running intellectual property dispute with Pfizer’s Wyeth over the top selling Prevnar 13 pneumococcal vaccine.
A unit of Standard Chartered Bank has prevailed in a securities spat with Energy World Corporation, which has been ordered to approve a $64.4 million note transfer and pay $42.2 million to the Singapore-based bank.
Pfizer unit Wyeth is seeking to overturn part of a judge’s decision in its high-stakes patent dispute with Merck Sharp & Dohme that found claims in two of its patents relating to the blockbuster Prevnar 13 pneumococcal vaccine were invalid.
Payouts in class actions in 2020 largely kept pace with the previous year despite the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, with companies and other defendants paying more than $696 million to settle class actions last year.
A class action filed by Maurice Blackburn against NAB units MLC and NULIS was invalidly commenced thanks to a carve out in the Supreme Court Act that bars class actions involving trust property, the Victoria Supreme Court has found.
The Federal Court judge who is now overseeing a high stakes criminal cartel case against several investment banks and individuals over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement has ordered that an indictment be filed by February 1, telling the parties “we have to get this case moving” and that he hoped to move the matter to trial “before we all retire”.
The NSW government cannot assert public immunity over cabinet documents sought in a case brought by the ACCC over an allegedly anti-competitive agreement for the privatisation of Port Botany and Port Kembla.
Three banks have been committed to stand trial after pleading not guilty to criminal charges stemming from an alleged cartel agreement reached in a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement, with the closely watched case now moving to the Federal Court two-and-a-half years after it was filed.