A court has found that a costs agreement between national law firm Mills Oakley and a client defending a lawsuit over a share dispute was void because the firm failed to provide adequate disclosures, with the final legal bill exceeding the firm’s estimate by over $100,000.
Google’s open letter to Australians, containing dire warnings about the effects of a proposed news media bargaining code, is misleading, the head of Australia’s consumer watchdog has said.
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.
A court has ordered the winding up of Askk Investment Group and the unregistered managed investment scheme it operated in Beveridge, Victoria, that raised more than $11 million from investors.
Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble has dropped a lawsuit accusing competitor Colgate-Palmolive of breaching consumer laws by making false claims about the performance of its whitening toothpaste that threatened to push its own brand of whitener off the shelves.
The judge overseeing ASIC’s case against logistics provider GetSwift cannot draw any inferences against the company because directors Bane Hunter and Joel Macdonald did not give evidence at trial, GetSwift’s barrister has said during closing submissions in the case.
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.
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