A judge has come down hard on a settlement in class actions against supermarket chain Romeo’s, saying group members had been kept in the dark and the costs to be paid to the plaintiffs’ firm did not add up.
A class action settlement with Woolworths which “troubled” a Federal Court judge has been abandoned, with the lead applicants resuming their bid to intervene in a parallel proceeding brought by the Fair Work Ombudsman against the supermarket giant.
HWL Ebsworth has told a judge the law firm’s omission of a mutual debt liability clause in a joint venture contract could not have led former client Dairycorp to lose a $130 million opportunity to develop land northwest of Sydney.
As we reach the 30-year anniversary of the modern form of class action in Australia, an enduring characteristic of class action practice in this country is that the area is not well-suited to those who enjoy certainty or predictability, say Jason Betts, Aoife Xuereb and Melissa Gladstone-Joyce of Herbert Smith Freehills.
Buy now, pay later giant Zip Co cannot rely on its infringing use of the ‘Zip’ trade mark to defend a lawsuit by the mark’s owner Firstmac, the mortgage provider’s barrister told a judge on the first day of trial in the high-stakes intellectual property dispute.
Online marketplace Redbubble cannot rely on the terms of a settlement with the US chapter of Hells Angels to avoid trade mark infringement claims by the Australian arm of the bikie gang, a court has ruled.
Clients of Linchpin Capital Group and subsidiary Endeavour Securities who were promised investments in a diversified loan portfolio were instead duped into funding Linchpin’s own business interests and lining its directors’ pockets, a judge has heard as trial got underway in ASIC’s case against three former Linchpin directors.
The maker of Mother brand energy drinks has filed an appeal challenging a judge’s decision to remove two of its registered ‘Mother’ trade marks for non-use.
HWL Ebsworth’s clients suffered a staggering $130 million loss when the law firm’s solicitors failed to notice “obvious red flags” in a joint venture contract for an ambitious Sydney-based land development, a court has heard.
Nando’s Australia has been criticised for claiming that its costs in a dispute against a single franchisee could reach close to $2 million, with an associate judge saying the bill could kickstart a precedent that leads to “the end of litigation as we know it”.