Law firm Maddocks has been ordered to pay more than $1.4 million in indemnity costs for “throwing good money after bad” in failing to consider a settlement offer in a negligence lawsuit over a client’s botched deal with Woolworths.
Mercedes-Benz has responded to a $650 million lawsuit by Australian dealers over its decision to move to a fixed-price agency model, saying it had a “legitimate commercial interest” in making the change and denying that dealer agreements were “perpetual” in their terms.
The litigation funder behind a fraudulent scheme in a class action over Banksia Securities has entered administration with negligible assets to its name.
The judge who made findings against the son of the mastermind behind the Banksia class action scam may have formed strong views about the 27-year-old’s role before he testified and used the flawed suggestion that he was his father’s right-hand man as an “evidential gap filler”, an appeals court has been told.
Two former barristers ordered to pay at least $21.7 million in damages and costs for their role in a fraudulent scheme to pocket a windfall from the Banksia Securities class action have filed for bankruptcy.
The Banksia Securities class action saga will return to the appeals court, with a lawyer indicating he plans to challenge last month’s ruling that found he knowingly assisted in a plot to defraud tens of thousands of investors in the collapsed lender.
A national law firm has been found liable to pay $13 million in damages for giving negligent advice to a former client that led to a botched sale of its business to Woolworths and caused it to go into administration.
Investors in collapsed stockbroker Halifax Investment Services have failed to overturn decisions in Australia and New Zealand relating to the date of realisation of their investments which have decreased the amount they can recover in the company’s liquidation.
Last week’s judgment denouncing the scandalous behaviour of the legal team running the Banksia Securities class action cast a spotlight on the conduct of lawyers for some of the defendants, asking whether “untenable” defences were maintained beyond an acceptable point in the case.
Lawyers running the scandal-ridden Banksia class action have been struck from the roll of practitioners, will face criminal investigation and must pay group members $11.7 million in damages.