Aviation services company Aerocare has lost its appeal of a Fair Work Commission decision that shot down an enterprise agreement forcing employees to work split shifts.
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.
A judge has chosen a winner in a battle of law firms vying to run a massive shareholder class action against BHP over the fatal collapse of a dam at its Brazilian mine, saying the funding arrangement behind the successful case would best serve class members.
Law firm Johnson Winter & Slattery has filed its defence against a cross claim by accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers in a shareholder class action over the collapse of Vocation, pointing to an email that shows the training company was advised of its disclosure obligations to the market.
A shareholder class action led by Bannister Law against sandalwood oil producer Quintis will be absorbed by rival law firm Gadens in a consolidation agreement that ends a battle over the competing cases.
Accounting giant Ernst & Young, which is accused in a class action of misleading and deceptive conduct in signing off on the 2015 and 2016 financial reports of sandalwood producer Quintis, has named the company’s previous auditor as partly to blame in any finding of liability.
A judge has taken a hatchet to Quinn Emanuel’s fees and the funder’s cut in a $12 million settlement of a class action against Bank of Queensland, a settlement which he previously described as one of the “worst” he’d ever seen.
Litigation funder Investor Claim Partner won’t promise it will maintain a lower commission rate in one of the Dick Smith class actions if mediation is delayed to next year.
Bannister Law has stepped down from leading a shareholder class action, the second major class action the firm has recently handed over to a rival firm without explanation.
Westpac-owned BankSA has admitted that convicted Ponzi schemer Michael Samra withdrew funds at “near excess” of the bank’s limits and had insufficient money to honour cheques drawn on his company’s bank account.