The question of whether judges have the power to hear employment cases as representative proceedings is headed to the Full Court after a union raised the issue as it battles to have its underpayments case against McDonald’s run instead of a Shine Lawyers class action.
A judge is weighing up a law firm’s high legal costs against a union’s “bizarre” delay in a stoush over who should run a case against McDonald’s alleging 100,000 workers were denied rest breaks.
An appeals court has dismissed a challenge in a lengthy legal drama between the children of one of Australia’s richest families, finding that a lawsuit over $200 million in Lendlease purchase options was not brought in good faith.
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.
S&P Global is fighting bids to expand a class action alleging systemic defects in its ratings systems to a new type of complex financial product and to include allegations from a US Department of Justice case in a separate suit by two Cayman Islands-based companies.
The divisive issue of whether judges are empowered to make a common fund order to distribute the costs of a funding commission at the settlement stage of a class action is headed back to the Full Federal Court next week.
A law firm running underpayments class actions against Coles and Woolworths has sought orders forcing them to hand over contact details for key workers in the Fair Work Ombudsman’s parallel cases, which the supermarket giants lashed as likely to “cause chaos” in the proceedings.
Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel and three other Palmer-related entities have been ordered to pay $44.5 million (US$30.8 million) to litigation funder Vannin Capital for defaulting on a loan for a private jet.
Ashurst has bolstered its Sydney tax practice with the addition of two senior taxation lawyers from Deloitte.
Uber has won a strike-out bid in a lawsuit by drivers challenging their classification as independent contractors, with a judge finding the pleading was “self-evidently, uncommonly and irretrievably deficient.”