The Victorian bill that would allow class action lawyers to charge contingency fees remains on the agenda, despite being delayed by reduced parliamentary sittings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
German cladding manufacturer 3A Composites is pushing forward with a bid to close a class action over allegedly combustible cladding to registered group members, arguing that a recent appeals court decision does not bar class closure in this case.
The operators of three Hero Sushi outlets have been fined a record $891,000 for underpaying staff and providing false records to the Fair Work Ombudsman to cover up what a judge referred to as wage “fraud”.
Qantas employees who have been stood down due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic are not entitled to access sick leave or compassionate leave, a court has ruled, with a union looking to appeal the decision.
Australian litigation funder Omni Bridgeway has thrown its support behind a legislative ban on common fund orders in class action proceedings as well as a law that would block class actions from being brought on a contingency fee basis.
A court has granted a request from Grosvenor Litigation Services, the funder that backed two class actions against Volkswagen over its emissions cheating scandal, to suppress the details of a co-funding agreement with Vannin Capital.
The Virgin Australia administration continues to boost billables at the top end of town, with a short list of “well-funded” buyers revealed on Monday and an intense four weeks ahead as the bidders and their law firms scramble to make binding offers by the mid-June deadline.
Nine-owned Fairfax Media has been hit with a defamation lawsuit by Papua New Guinea’s Minister of Trade & Commerce, who claims the Australian Financial Review engaged in a “smear campaign” by publishing an article accusing him of corruption, bribery and money laundering.
Atanaskovic Hartnell has mostly come up short in a court battle for over $172,000 in legal fees, with a judge finding the law firm was in a “manifest position of conflict” in its dispute with two media companies defrauded by one of its former lawyers, Brody Clarke.
The ACCC has been given the green light to use witness statements prepared during its criminal cartel investigation of BlueScope Steel in the civil penalty proceedings launched by the regulator, but a fight with the steel giant over the admissibility of the evidence still looms.