Alice Poole

The Australian Federal Court has ordered payments business iSignthis Limited (iSignthis) (now Southern Cross Payments Limited) to pay a A$10 million penalty for breaching continuous disclosure laws and misleading the market. Its former managing director and chief executive officer, Nicolas Karantzis, was also disqualified from managing corporations for six years and penalised A$1 million for breaching his director’s duties and for his role as an accessory to iSignthis’ contraventions.

In a decision that will be welcomed by litigation funders and class action plaintiffs, the Court of Appeal has ruled that New Zealand courts can make common fund orders at the start of a class action. Read the full decision of the Court of Appeal [here] and our earlier comments on the High Court decision [here]. What is a common fund order?

On 27 June, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in partnership with the Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law published its sixth annual ‘Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation: 2024 Snapshot’ Report. The Report examines the key trends emerging from the 230 climate litigation cases brought globally in the 2023 calendar year.