The country’s most experienced class action law firm won two and lost two in last year’s beauty parades before the courts, showing track record is not everything when it comes to winning carriage of cases and that picking the winner can be a tricky business. From line-ball decisions to law firm team-ups and the lowest contingency fee order yet, here’s how 2023’s class action contests went down.
A former Atanaskovic Hartnell client is seeking special leave to challenge a judgment from the NSW Court of Appeal that found self-represented law firms can recover costs for work done by their own solicitors, urging the High Court to intervene to clarify a judgment eliminating the so-called Chorley exception.
Energy company Santos has defeated a challenge by a Tiwi Islander traditional custodian to the construction of a pipeline for its $5.6 billion Barossa gas project, with a judge rejecting expert evidence about risks to cultural heritage.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has lost its opposition to the registration of three trade marks by pay on demand company BeforePay, with a delegate finding that consumers of banking and financial services were unlikely to be confused by the marks and acted with high “care and attention”.
Developer Centurion Australia Investments has lost an appeal in a dispute with builder APM Group in which it argued that its RMIT Village student accommodation falls under laws applying to domestic buildings.
Property developer Green Capital and Lake Macquarie City council are facing a class action seeking compensation for homeowners in a Newcastle suburb over properties that are allegedly sinking into the ground and have been “injuriously affected in value”.
Over three years into a class action against failed asset finance lender Axsesstoday and auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers over a $50 million prospectus, the applicant has won the green light to add four insurers to the case.
Electric car giant Tesla has brought court proceedings against a NSW man seeking the removal of documents from the web, including material allegedly leaked by a former employee who recently raised concerns about the company’s self-driving software.
Atomos’ former US-based CEO — who was fired after she failed to relocate to Melbourne — has lost her fight to stay the video technology company’s lawsuit, with a judge finding the dispute over a bridging loan for the international move should be decided under Australian law.
A Network Ten executive received an angry phone call from former prime minister Scott Morrison’s chief media advisor after claims about the Liberal Party’s handling of Brittany Higgins’ alleged sexual assault were aired on The Project, new court documents reveal.