The recent dismissal of two shareholder class actions after hard-fought trials is expected to lead to a recalibration of litigation risk and may discourage plaintiff firms and funders from pursuing what might once have been considered slam dunk cases, experts say.
It’s a case of déjà vu in a class action against engineering services company Worley, with shareholders heading back to the appeals court after losing a second trial in their drawn out fight over disclosure breaches.
Sydney financier First Class Capital has admitted it acquired three million shares in former market darling Big Un but has denied liquidators’ claims that the purchase was part of a fraudulent design to inflate the share price ahead of the video start-up’s collapse.
A judge has signed off on a 27.5 per cent group costs order in a consolidated shareholder class action against Medibank over a cyberattack that affected 10 million customers, noting the “significant risk” taken on by the two plaintiff law firms running the action.
A law firm is investigating an shareholder class action against lithium battery producer Magnis Energy Technologies and auditor Hall Chadwick after its share price plummeted to four cents late last year.
A shareholder class action against livestock exporter Wellard over a profit downgrade following its $300 million initial public offering in 2015 has settled for $23 million.
Construction giant Boral has lost its bid to block a class action from running a ‘novel’ argument that shareholders suffered loss because of natural fluctuations in share price, rather than as a direct result of alleged continuous disclosure breaches.
Awaiting judgment in Federal Court class actions by shareholders over its money laundering risk disclosures, the Commonwealth Bank will ask the court to reopen the case to consider the relevance of two recent decisions that found shareholders in other class actions had failed to prove loss.
The country’s most experienced class action law firm won two and lost two in last year’s beauty parades before the courts, showing track record is not everything when it comes to winning carriage of cases and that picking the winner can be a tricky business. From line-ball decisions to law firm team-ups and the lowest contingency fee order yet, here’s how 2023’s class action contests went down.
Over three years into a class action against failed asset finance lender Axsesstoday and auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers over a $50 million prospectus, the applicant has won the green light to add four insurers to the case.