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The Federal Court won't permit a Melbourne-based judge to travel to Sydney on the dime of the parties in a class action against wealth management group Colonial First State, but will foot the bill itself.
The Canberra developer behind the Manhattan on the Park apartment building in the national capital has been hit with a class action on behalf of home buyers who were allegedly misled into paying GST on the price of their property.
The access to justice and efficiency objectives of the 30-year class action regime would be better served by more active scrutiny at the point of commencement, say Allens partners Belinda Thompson and Jenny Campbell.
Teleco contractor BSA has reached an in-principle settlement resolving a class action that accuses the company of misclassifying its workforce of technicians as independent contractors.
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.
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.
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.
Three decades on from its rocky beginnings, when representatives of the coalition opposition decried the Part IVA bill as a “monstrosity” and as “looney”, “half baked” and “wrong” during parliamentary debates, the class action procedure and its legitimacy and efficacy have come to gain acceptance across the spectrum of practitioners and among the judiciary, says Maurice Blackburn's Julian Schimmel.
ANZ has hit back at claims in a class action that it slugged retrospective interest on credit card accounts and that its interest terms were not explicit, arguing the term 'retrospective' is liable to "confuse" the issues to be decided by the court.
Over the last 30 years, the class action regimes have undoubtedly improved access to justice, helped to resolve disputes more efficiently, and reduced the costs of litigation. While the current spotlight on the role of litigation funding and returns to group members is warranted, other aspects of the regimes are ripe for reform, say Clayton Utz partners Greg Williams, Andrew Morrison, Alexandra Rose and senior associate Will Atfield.