A judge has signed off on a $2.5 million settlement of a class action against the developers of the Governor Place residential complex in Canberra brought by apartment owners over the GST payments on their units, with the funder of the proceedings to earn $1.9 million.
The son of controversial funder and lawyer Mark Elliott has been joined to proceedings alleging the lawyers behind the Banksia Securities class action conspired to pocket excessive fees in the case, after a court heard there was a “litany” of evidence he was party to the alleged fraudulent scheme.
The National Tertiary Education Union has launched a class action investigation against Australia’s universities for alleged wage theft, the latest sector to be engulfed by the country’s underpayments scandal.
Facebook and Google have been hit with a class action alleging their 2018 decisions to ban advertising of cryptocurrencies breached competition laws.
The son of a 92-year-old woman who died after she contracted COVID-19 at a Melbourne aged care home has launched a class action against the residential facility, claiming damages for stress and anxiety caused by his mother’s death.
Disgraced senior counsel Norman O’Bryan and the son of deceased lawyer Mark Elliott are among the targets of a summons for $7 million in legal bills racked up in the fight over commission and costs in the Banksia Securities class action, a fight that has already claimed the career of O’Bryan and another barrister.
Two insurance companies have been joined as respondents to a class action against forestry giant Gunns over the failure of six managed investment schemes for eucalyptus wood in Tasmania.
The lead applicant in a shareholder class action against Crown Resorts will ask the Federal Court to declare the proceedings a priority matter so that lawyers readying the case for an upcoming trial in Melbourne can access childcare despite stage 4 COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria.
The solicitor on the record in a class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities has admitted that he never asked to see the fee slips of one of the barristers acting in the case, conceding that this was a ‘gross dereliction’ to his clients.
A judge has rejected a bid by car giant Toyota to provide unsolicited submissions to a court-appointed referee tasked with determining technical questions in the case, saying the application was the first he’d ever seen in 30 years.