Common fund orders are the completion of the notion of class actions envisaged when the regime was introduced 27 years ago, a joint-sitting of two appeals courts was told on the second and last day of a landmark challenge to what has become an oft-used case management tool by trial judges.
US-based chemical and materials technology company Cytec Industries has filed a patent lawsuit against a unit of Ecolab, after a delegate for IP Australia gave the water technology company a third chance to amend its patent for preventing sediment buildup on mining equipment.
An appeal before a historic joint sitting of two courts over so-called common fund orders in class actions kicked off Monday with a full bench of six judges and a packed courtroom hearing arguments by eminent barristers for BMW and Westpac that the orders are either preemptive or pointless.
An unprecedented joint-sitting of two appeals courts will this week hear a constitutional challenge to the power of judges to make so-called common fund orders, a challenge that could have significant ramifications for class actions even if they don’t fall foul of the ‘vibe of the thing’.
The Full Federal Court has shot down a challenge by Japanese electronics company Nichia Corp. to a ruling that Arrow Electronics did not infringe its patent for a white light emitting device.
Teva has taken generic drug maker Pharmacor to court for allegedly threatening to infringe its patent for a Parkinson’s drug.
Car giant Ford will face a claim of unconsionable conduct in a trial of a class action over its defective PowerShift transmission that is now scheduled to run twice as long as originally thought, but claims on behalf of second-hand Ford vehicle owners are out.
Responding to a judge’s criticism of the class action “beauty parade”, two rival law firms have come up with a plan to deal with their competing shareholder class actions against Brambles.
An ecological landscaper suing the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust fund for an undeveloped climate change policy has lost an application for a maximum costs order in the public-interest case.
From a record-setting funder’s cut to the first call for ‘“proportionality”, last year saw a number of groundbreaking judgments approving class action settlements worth more than half a billion dollars. Here are the 10 biggest settlements of 2018, and the law firms and funders that negotiated them.