Companies and other defendants forked over big sums last year to settle more than 20 class actions, with a total of at least $734 million being paid out. Here are the top 10 class action settlements and the law firms and funders that negotiated them.
The liquidators of Melbourne-based forex trader Berndale Capital have filed examination proceedings in the Federal Court seeking to question the company’s former CEO and its other directors.
The Full Federal Court has provided clarity around additional damages in patent cases by reducing the penalties liable to be paid by an Australian fencing and gate manufacturer found to have infringed a rival’s patent for a fence base.
A court has allowed a bankruptcy trustee to drop an “extremely disadvantageous” litigation funding agreement, which provided the funder with an 85 per cent commission, previously signed to pursue a Perth-based engineering and construction company.
Elaine Stead, venture capitalist and former executive director of doomed fund manager Blue Sky Alternative Investments, has filed defamation proceedings against Nine-owned Fairfax over a series of articles criticising her role in the company’s collapse.
A judge has given his seal of approval to a $29 million settlement that resolves a class action over Radio Rentals’ Rent, Try, $1 Buy scheme alleging customers were kept in the dark about the true cost of their rentals.
A law firm bringing the second of two cases by franchisees against Domino’s Pizza is weighing a possible class action against the fast food giant.
The High Court has granted special leave to cartridge reseller Calidad after the company lost an intellectual property dispute with printer giant Seiko Epson and was hit with a general injunction barring it from further patent infringement.
Australia’s law firms are stepping up in response to the bushfire crisis across the country, pledging money, pro bono work — even P2 masks — to support those hardest hit.
The property developers behind two Canberra apartment complexes have been dealt a partial loss in two class actions against them, with a judge finding the developers misled the lead applicants about the GST payable on their units but that only some of them were entitled to compensation or restitution.
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