Nine-owned Fairfax will have to pay out over $2 million in legal fees after being hit with indemnity costs on top of a $280,000 judgment in its defamation spat with venture capitalist Dr Elaine Stead for its “Micawber-like” approach to the case.
A judge has rejected a class closure order application by the lead applicants in a class action against convenience store chain On The Run ahead of mediation, finding that the court does not have power to make such an order at a “relatively early” stage in a class action.
A judge has ordered ASIC to enter mediation before heading into a “very expensive” trial with an IOOF subsidiary accused of giving shonky advice, over objections from the regulator that mediation would be “completely futile”.
Going to court shouldn’t be a “Darwinian experience” for lawyers, where only those with thick skin or no children survive, NSW’s most senior judge has said.
IOOF subsidiary Australian Executor Trustees failed to drag law firm Sparke Helmore into a case after it was hit with a $76.6 million judgment over breaches of duty in the sale of a 42,000 hectare timber plantation by collapsed forestry giant Gunns Group.
A judge has refused a bid to file a new pleading in a $1.3 million “squabble” with an “unfortunate history” between a client and his former solicitors, one of whom is now dead, dating back to 1993.
Fairfax has hit back at claims in a lawsuit that the publisher defamed a barrister in an article alleging he helped Texas billionaire Bob Brockman defraud the United States of US$2 billion in taxes, denying the article defamed the lawyer and saying the report was an honest summary of publically available information.
Three former Griffith Hack partners have joined forces to launch their own IP firm, which they claim offers a “new and more holistic approach” to intellectual property.
A judge has approved a $9.5 million settlement in a class action against McMillan Shakespeare as fair and reasonable, allowing a common fund order and a nearly 30 percent commission for the litigation funder despite previously raising “real concerns” about the small portion flowing to group members.
Whether a contingency fee order made in a Victoria Supreme Court class action can survive a transfer application to a NSW court could be the next high stakes class action issue for the courts.
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