Disgraced senior counsel Norman O’Bryan and the son of deceased lawyer Mark Elliott are among the targets of a summons for $7 million in legal bills racked up in the fight over commission and costs in the Banksia Securities class action, a fight that has already claimed the career of O’Bryan and another barrister.
Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble has dropped a lawsuit accusing competitor Colgate-Palmolive of breaching consumer laws by making false claims about the performance of its whitening toothpaste that threatened to push its own brand of whitener off the shelves.
The solicitor on the record in a class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities has admitted that he never asked to see the fee slips of one of the barristers acting in the case, conceding that this was a ‘gross dereliction’ to his clients.
An independent costs consultant retained to assess the legal fees sought to be recouped from a settlement in a class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities has denied he was the “dogsbody” of funder Mark Elliott during a fiery cross examination at trial over the costs of the litigation.
A week after silk Norman O’Bryan dropped his defence against allegations of misconduct in the running of a class action over the failure of Banksia Securities, his junior counsel, Michael Symons, has also conceded defeat, telling a court he too should be struck off the practitioners’ roll.
A judge has ordered that disputes arising between Transurban and a group of contractors over the discovery of toxic PFAS chemicals in the soil at the site of the multi-billion dollar West Gate Tunnel project in Melbourne be sent to arbitration.
A former QRx Pharma director’s prediction that shareholders would not receive “anything of consequence” from a class action settlement has proven true, with only a small slice of the $7 million settlement expected to go to shareholders.
A BP worker whose employment was reinstated after he was unfairly dismissed for sharing a video clip that included subtitles placed over a scene from the movie ‘Downfall’ about Adolf Hitler, has been awarded $201,000 in lost wages and superannuation.
Health booking company HealthEngine has urged the court to accept a $2.9 million penalty for deleting and altering unfavourable reviews, telling a judge that it did not know the behaviour was against the law.
Barrister Norman O’Bryan has accepted that he should be struck from the roll of legal practitioners after dropping his defence mid-trial against claims of professional misconduct as senior counsel for a class action financed by the late Mark Elliott, but the consequences for the once high-flying silk might not end there.