A judge has been accused of “very aggressively” raising issues with a barrister for the Federal Government over its failure to amend its defence in a $300 million class action centred on the Commonwealth’s controversial Robodebt scheme to match recent public admissions.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is seeking a contempt finding against a former solicitor for defunct vocational trainer Empower Institute over alleged billing practices.
Judges should be given the power to make class closure orders again, defence law firms have told the latest class action inquiry, which comes on the heels of a landmark appeals court ruling that there is no statutory authority to keep unregistered class members out of a group proceeding.
Tens of thousands of Ford cars which contain an allegedly defective transmission system are “lemons”, a court heard on day one of a six-week hearing in a long-running class action against the car maker.
Émails show the directors of logistics company GetSwift took a “deliberate approach” to inflating the company’s share price through a constant supply of positive ASX announcements about new multimillion-dollar contracts, ASIC said on the first day of a highly anticipated five-week trial.
The Full Federal Court has thrown out the ACCC’s challenge to a ruling dismissing its case alleging Kimberly-Clark made misleading representations about its flushable wipes.
Much of the criticism of the ligitaion funding industry being played out in the media recently is based on misinformation, says Andrew Saker of Omni Bridgeway.
ASIC has slapped an Australian unit of French investment bank Société Générale with additional licence conditions for failing to comply with its obligations for handling client money over a near four-year period.
A judge has rejected calls by mining tool company Globaltech and driller Boart Longyear to disqualify himself from hearing a patent infringement case against them, despite ruling in an earlier proceeding that the patent was valid and that Globaltech had infringed it.
The class action system is working well, and reform that limits access to the regime should be carefully considered, the latest government inquiry has been told by a chorus of experts, including lawyers, academics and Australia’s competition cop. Still, some defence firms say recent moves cracking down on class actions don’t go far enough.
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