The defendants in
Pearce were advisors to individuals who were nearing a state of insolvency and were seeking to restructure their debt. Several former customers alleged the defendants were operating illegally and sought a return of fees paid and damages.
The former customers sought to have their claims certified as a class action proceeding. Some of these customers had entered into a standard form contract with the defendants that contained a class action waiver clause. The clause purported to prevent the customers from bringing class action proceedings. The defendants opposed class certification, and sought a stay of proceedings against some customers based on the class action waiver clause, among other grounds.
Stranger walked through door, plunged knife into manâs neck A man who stabbed a council worker in the neck, leaving his carotid artery almost completely severed during an unprovoked attack, has been sentenced.
Crime by Vanessa Marsh
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Subscriber only A man who stabbed a council employee in the neck in an explosive and heinous unprovoked attack will have to serve six years in prison before he is eligible for parole. John Matthew Fitzgerald, 42, was found guilty of the horrific attack on Brisbane City Council draftsman Josue Natanael Espinosa-Cassanelli who was left fighting for life after he was stabbed in the neck at a Woolloongabba unit in 2019.