Law firm Maurice Blackburn will ask a court to approve $14.5 million in costs for running a class action against Colonial First State that has settled for $56.3 million, giving account holders 75 per cent of the proceeds.
Ernst & Young has won a bid to throw out a subpoena probing whether its conflict-of-interest protocols were followed in a lawsuit against mining equipment company PPK, with a judge dismissing the summons as a fishing expedition.
The plaintiffs in a class action over alleged unfair flex commission arrangements have hit back at Macquarie Leasing’s claims that out-of-pocket customers should have negotiated better deals with car dealers, arguing car loans were taken out as part of a “staged sales process” that limited negotiation.
A judge has signed off on a $125 million settlement to resolve a shareholder class action against Crown Resorts over disclosures relating to its Chinese gambling operations, but has shaved $1 million from the funder’s proposed commission.
Two psychiatrists who administered the controversial deep sleep therapy at the Chelmsford Private Hospital in the 1970s have won a Full Federal Court appeal in their defamation cases against publisher HarperCollins, with one of the cases being sent back for a re-trial.
Mining tool company Globaltech has lost its bid to delay Australian Mud Company’s case, on foot since 2016, which seeks $39.9 million in damages for its rival’s infringement of a mining tool patent.
The former director of Mayfair’s failed IPO Wealth Holdings, James Mawhinney, has lost his challenge to a judge’s decision allowing liquidators to examine him for an eighth day about the transfer of “considerable assets and funds” from the fund to other entities he controlled.
Atanaskovic Hartnell is challenging a $160,000 judgment against the law firm and founding partner John Atanaskovic, who was found to have engaged in a campaign to “abuse, belittle and victimise” a former general manager.
A judge has panned ASIC’s bid to discover a wide range of privileged communications between super fund REST and various legal advisers, finding the regulator used a “very wide net” to catch nothing at all.
Hall & Wilcox has bolstered its insurance practice with the appointment of new partner Priya Paquet, who will be based at the firm’s Brisbane office.
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