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 top execs banned from managing companies
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.
Court of Appeal upholds declaration that funding agreement is valid
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.