Appellate guidance is needed on whether a history of cooperation between law firms that brought competing class actions can be the deciding factor in a close carriage contest, the Victorian Court of Appeal has heard.
The High Court has held that a contractor had a “prima facie entitlement” to recoup the costs of building an aircraft hangar in Cessnock, NSW, which it spent in reliance on the local government performing its obligations under their contract, in a case that clarifies how courts should assess reliance damages claims.
The High Court had been asked to clarify the extent of protection for employers for genuine redundancies under the Fair Work Act, after an appeals court found the exemption was “not absolute”.
The High Court has been asked to weigh in on whether a client needs to prove it could have exploited a lost commercial right in order to prevail in a law firm negligence case, after HWL Ebsworth successfully appealed a decision that found its bad advice over property in Parramatta’s ‘Auto Alley’ cost a client $2 million.
The Full Federal Court has found the court’s recently-affirmed power to make common fund orders at settlement means the litigation funder that backed two class actions against 7-Eleven is entitled to a $24.5 million cut from a $98 million settlement, in a decision that slammed the parties for a settlement approval process that “went off the rails”, costing group members $2.5 million.
Bruce Lehrmann has been given extra time to file any appeal of a ruling he raped colleague Brittany Higgins but in the meantime the former political staffer must hand over information on who funded his defamation case against Network Ten, which is likely to see him on the hook for millions of dollars in costs.
The litigation funder that bankrolled a patent infringement case by a vehicle monitoring systems manufacturer is on the hook for legal costs after technology company SARB succeeded in appealing a finding that it infringed the IP for a parking detection system used by the City of Melbourne.
A Kurdish refugee has lost his appeal seeking compensation for being kept in makeshift hotel detention centres for 14 months after a judge found the detention lacked “human decency” but was not unlawful.
Five passengers who were forced off a Qatar Airways flight and strip searched at Doha International Aiport have appealed a ruling summarily tossing their claims against the airline.
Aussie Skips is not appealing a finding that it engaged in serious criminal cartel conduct but will challenge the size of the $3.5 million penalty, a court has been told.