Revelations of fraud this week in the Banksia class action have put the ability of judges to scrutinise litigation funding agreements in the spotlight of a parliamentary class action inquiry, with one MP claiming the judiciary was “stretched beyond capacity”.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission told the government’s class action inquiry that it was committed to making the existing class action regime work with upcoming regulations that will spell the end of its “light touch” approach to litigation funders.
Lawyer Mark Elliott was the “puppet master” behind the Banksia class action, retaning an old school mate to represent the lead applicant but in reality funding and running the proceedings with barristers Norman O’Bryan SC and Michael Symons to line their pockets at the expense of group members, a court has been told.
The operator of Dreamworld in Queensland has pleaded guilty to three charges over the 2016 deaths of four people on the theme park’s now demolished Thunder River Rapids ride.
Tile maker Ceramiche Caesar has prevailed in its challenge to a judge’s ruling allowing building products manufacturer Caesarstone to register two trade marks despite a finding that they were deceptively similar to one of its marks.
Global law firm DLA Piper has boosted its restructuring practice with the hire of former Ashurst partner Lionel Meehan for its Melbourne team, the firm’s fourth new hire in recent months.
AMP has been hit with a cliass action by a group of financial planners over changes to its buyer of last resort policy last year, which cut the number of authoried advisers and retreated from a promise to buy back their businesses at a price based on a set multiple.
The Murray Goulburn class action has been cited repeatedly in the current parliamentary inquiry into class actions and litigation funding. For some, the return generated by Omni Bridgeway, which funded the action, is Exhibit A in the case that litigation funders make too much money. To others – including the one person in the best position to judge – it is nothing of the sort, says Clive Bowman of Omni Bridgeway.
The funder and legal team behind a class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities billed for phantom costs in a “fraudulent scheme” to secure almost $20 million from the case, the contradictor investigating the purported misconduct has told a court.
A court has granted ASIC’s bid to wind up an illegal managed investment scheme whose operators fled to India following the “systematic misappropriation” of almost $7 million in investor funds.
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