There is an “embarrassing” foreign influence on Australian laws, a plaintiff law firm has told a parliamentary inquiry into class actions, after revealing that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg met with an affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce in May, shortly before announcing a crackdown on litigation funders.
The law firm that represented elderly victims of Ponzi schemer Bradley Sherwin has told the government’s class action inquiry of its “painful” relationship with the funder involved in the proceedings, which eventually saw the firm bow out of the case because of a conflict of interest.
The litigation funder behind the class action over Banksia Securities’ collapse has admitted it misled a costs consultant retained to report to the court on the reasonableness of the fees in the case, but says its commission should not take a hit as a result because the misconduct occurred after the litigation settled against Banksia’s trustee for $64 million.
The ACCC has launched court proceedings against Google, accusing the search engine giant of duping millions of Australians into agreeing to expand the scope of personal information that could be collected and combined for use in targeted advertising.
Administrators for The PAS Group have failed in their bid to have almost $1.4M in rent declared an unsecured debt in the event the fashion retailer goes into liquidation amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Former Bellamy’s Australia director Jan Cameron has pleaded not gulty to two charges stemming from an alleged failure to disclose her stake in the organic baby food company.
Veterinary pharmaceutical company Norbrook Laboratories has filed court proceedings after a delegate of IP Australia tossed its opposition to a patent by Bayer New Zealand for a bovine antiseptic treatment.
An Australian litigation funder has warned a parliamentary inquiry into class actions that there is unlikely to be any funded class actions filed for up to 12 months, with new laws, set to take effect from August 22, creating a “regulatory vacuum”.
A senior officer from the ACCC has rejected claims that the regulator took legal advice from immunity applicant JPMorgan before launching its high profile criminal cartel case against ANZ, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.
AMP Life has been hit with a class action alleging its financial representatives pushed inflated insurance policies onto 100,000 customers while knowing that better policies could be found through other providers.
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