The cost consultant joined as a defendant in the trial over alleged misconduct by the Banksia class action legal team has died, the second person implicated in the fee scandal to die this year.
A court has ordered comparison website iSelect to pay $8.5 million in penalties for making misleading representations through its online electricity comparison service and pushing plans to consumers that were not necessarily best suited for them.
Lawyer Alex Elliott was complicit in a plan by his late father to mislead the court and group members in the Banksia class action, to conceal conflicts of interest and to profit from the case at the expense of debenture holders, a judge has been told.
The Murray Goulburn class action run by Elliott Legal bears similarities to the Banksia class action, a case rife with scandal and offered up by opponents as proof of the problems with the class action regime. The leading lawyers were the same in both cases. In one they have abandoned any claim to their fees and have walked away from their careers. In the other they walked away with $5 million.
US drug company Merck Sharp & Dohme has settled trade mark litigation brought by German drug maker Merck KGaA alleging it violated a 1970 agreement by using the “Merck” mark in Australia.
Viagogo has been ordered to pay a $7 million penalty for misleading customers into thinking the ticket reseller was an official vendor and failing to disclose booking fees of around 28 per cent.
An appeals court has dismissed a second bid by lawyer Alex Elliott to have the judge overseeing the Banksia class action disqualified from hearing claims that he, like his late father, was party to an alleged fraudulent scheme in running the litigation.
The ACCC has lost its case against Employsure alleging the specialist workplace relations consultancy duped small businesses into signing long-term contracts via several Google ads that promised free workplace advice which appeared to be government-affiliated.
Google has rejected claims by the ACCC that it tricked consumers into agreeing to expanded collection of their personal data, saying that it instead sought “explicit consent” from users through an “easy-to-understand opt-in consent mechanism”.
A judge has approved a $7 million settlement in a class action against the directors of pharmaceutical company QRxPharma, only a third of which will go to group members, saying proportionality was not a basis for rejecting fees that were otherwise fair and reasonable.