Generic drug maker Sandoz is challenging a ruling that it infringed a patent behind Lundbeck’s blockbuster antidepressant Lexapro, reviving a 15-year fight over the lucrative intellectual property.
A challenge to the legality of common fund orders, an appeal to the High Court over the power of judges to stay competing cases, one of the first judgments in a shareholder class action and reform proposals promise to make 2019 another action-packed year in class actions. Here, experts give their predictions for the class action landscape this year.
The applicant in a class action against Ford over allegedly defective PowerShift transmissions has taken another stab at bringing an unconscionable conduct claim, after the judge overseeing the case panned an earlier pleading as “problematic”.
Last year was an exciting one for class action lawyers, with monumental court decisions on competing cases, cross-jurisdictional spats, proportionality in settlements and the power of judges to decide how a recovery is distributed. Here, top class action litigators tell us what the most significant rulings of 2018 were and why the decisions will continue to matter this year.
Debt collector ACM Group has been hit with a $750,000 fine for engaging in unconscionable conduct by misleading, harassing and coercing two vulnerable customers while chasing unpaid debts.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission wants to block former We Buy Houses director Rick Otton from using the proceeds from the sale of his $3.6 million Bondi home to help with legal costs and living expenses as he appeals a record $6 million fine for consumer law violations.
The law firms that challenged a ruling staying their cases against GetSwift gave the Full Federal Court a chance to guide judges managing competing class actions, but they can’t avoid paying their opponents’ legal costs because the court happened to seize the opportunity.
Hotel booking aggregator Trivago, which last month admitted to breaching the consumer laws over its travel accommodation rankings, has lost a bid to keep secret internal documents that detail why the company made changes to its website and rejigged its advertising.
Three former executives of failed Gold Coast finance company MFS Group have lost their challenge to a ruling that they misappropriated $147.5 million in funds prior to the company’s collapse.
Law firm Squire Patton Boggs is taking a fight over a ruling that shut down its shareholder class action against logistics startup GetSwift to the High Court.