The Fair Work Ombudsman has secured its first penalties under ‘serious contraventions’ provisions of the Fair Work Act, seeing a recidivist former Han’s Café franchisee in Perth and general manager slapped with $230,000 in fines for the”cavalier” and “entirely unacceptable” underpayment of vulnerable, young migrant workers.
A former director of defunct financial services company Linchpin Capital, who is facing a class action as well as civil penalty proceedings by ASIC, can’t put the brakes on his challenge to a five-year disqualification order by the regulator.
The parties in a class action against the Federal Government over the controversial Robodebt scheme have reached an in principle settlement as the first day of a highly anticipated hearing was scheduled to kick off.
Class action filings in the Victoria Supreme Court have more than doubled in 2020, a trend that’s likely to hold as law firms take advantage of a new law allowing them to earn contingency fees for running successful class actions.
Murray Goulburn’s former managing director Gary Helou and chief financial officer Brad Hingle have been disqualified from heading up companies after they were found to have breached the Corporations Act for their role in the milk supplier’s repeated failure to disclose an expected material decrease in the milk supplier’s earnings guidance for 2016.
The class members in the Gladstone Fisheries class action and their funder LCM Operations have successfully upheld in the Court of Appeal a declaration confirming the enforceability of the funding agreements in the case. This is an important decision, which validates the third party funding of class actions and puts to bed any residual arguments regarding the continuing effect of the medieval torts of maintenance and champerty on class action funding arrangements, says Susanna Taylor, LCM’s head of investment, APAC.
Two class actions on behalf of 7-Eleven franchisees plan to expand their case against the convenience store chain by adding new allegations of systemic unconscionable conduct.
A McDonald’s franchisee has been ordered to pay $82,000 in penalties for systemically denying workers drink and toilet breaks and misleading them about their break entitlements, providing fuel for a class action investigation into the US fast food chain for allegedly denying workers rest breaks.
A judge said Friday that a bid by last-mile logistics software firm GetSwift to relocate to Canada as it faces a potential $20 million civil penalty from ASIC and a $50 million class action was “not a good look”.
A judge has dismissed Pfizer’s bid for preliminary discovery to pursue a possible patent infringement case against drug maker Sandoz over a generic version of its blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis biologic Enbrel.
For information on rights and reprints, contact subscriptions@lawyerly.com.au
