We think Justice Murphy, a former class actions guru at Maurice Blackburn and known to denounce the devices used by the deep-pocketed targets of class actions, might have told Mallesons partner Moira Saville that her efforts at discovery were … unsatisfactory.
Moreover, many of our readers will know that Centro’s directors and its auditor, PwC, are facing a huge class action. Investors say the company engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and breached their continuous disclosure obligations in the reporting of their June 2007 accounts. Well, the case is apparently at a standstill thanks to Mallesons’ efforts at providing discovery of its client’s info.
As reported by the AFR (10/08):
The hunt is on for a laptop tha plaintiffs in two class actions against Centro… Michael Lee, a barrister for the Maurice Blackburn class action, asked the court to order that a laptop used by PwC partner [in charge of the Centro audit] Stephen Cougle … be handed over to the court so a forensic expert could access it… The court heard that Mallesons Stephen Jaques partner Moira Saville, acting for PwC, had provided an affidavit on Monday stating that after spending 5500 man hours, worth some $2million in legal fees, working through documents, PwC recently realised there was an incomplete copy of an audit file on Mr Cougle’s laptop…
[Barrister Lee said] the audit file was “possibly the most important document in the case on the laptop of possibly the most important witness”, adding it was “inconceivable” that it had taken so long for PwC to raise it with them.
5500 man hours, and they still missed “possibly the most important document of possibly the most important witness”. Billing at 75 units per day, that’s a team of five lawyers working on nothing else for … five months! And because we’re talking about Mallesons, that figure … includes weekends.
Sound like good value to you? Whilst we were trying to work out whether PwC (or, more specifically, PwC’s insurer) was getting value for money, we thought back to one of our recent articles:
Recently retired Victorian Supreme Court Justice David Byrne … agrees that AAR’s billing practices in particular should be debated. The Age interviewed Justice Byrne in May, and noted:
In a case that still makes Byrne seethe, he lambasted Allens Arthur Robinson’s $3.7 million bill for costs in a case that ran for six years before it went to trial. The final bill was expected to hit $8 million, but this sum could not be recovered anyway because the opposing party sank into receivership. At the time, Byrne described AAR’s bill as “a great reproach on the legal system” and said “some restraint, some proportionality and perhaps less greed should be shown”.
But his Honour didn’t stop at rebuking AAR for the greed involved in the case; he went onto highlight how lawyers like those involved in this case are able to exploit an ethical conundrum that emerges in a billable-unit fee structure:
“The cost [of commissioning lawyers and litigating] is just appalling, and we have made considerable efforts to reduce it…there’s no incentive in our cost structure for lawyers to be more efficient. You depend so much on their own integrity that they will not just make a meal of it.”
Given that Mallesons appear to have missed “possibly the most important document … of possibly the most important witness”, yet billed $2million for the privilege, is this a case of misplaced dependence on integrity?
Send the Firm Spy your news and views!
Loading...
We (Malleys) also spent $37m on discovery in the Multiplex class action…
Team got good bonuses.
This is contempt of court. The people on the discovery team need to be interviewed to find out what they were told to discover and what they were told to withhold from discovery (and by whom).
It’s not contempt. It’s just the usual incompetence from Mallesons’ DR team. Why do clients use these morons?
C’mon FS, you can do better than this. Anyone who’s even gone close to discovery knows that the lawyers can only discover what they’re given.
As for MB, there’s a law firm that would NEVER be prone to hyperbole, would it?
If the ambulance chasers weren’t in the habit of putting on half-baked pleadings, then claiming 15 tranches of discovery to see whether they in fact have a case, it mightn’t take so long for these litigations to run…
@I call BS: too true!
Which company keeps partners laptops for 4+ years. This is BS and they are chacing ambulances and wasting everyone’s time. Nothing to see here
@SomeOne
How’s about one which knew it was going to be the subject of a class action? I know from being there than PWC’s file servers are extensive and thorough. It’s more suspicious that they don’t have access to an archived version.
“…after spending 5500 man hours, worth some $2million in legal fees, working through documents, PwC recently realised there was an incomplete copy of an audit file on Mr Cougle’s laptop…”
Um who wrote this post? Are they a lawyer?? It clearly says “PwC” realised it had provided incomplete information to Mallesons – not that Mallesons had belatedly realised that it had not identified a relevant document. So to complain that “Mallesons’ efforts” at discovery were “unsatisfactory” is a bit rich – you can only discover information you’re given by your client – what do you want the law firm to do? Make up the information or fill in the missing blanks?? The lawyers didn’t “fail to discover” anything here.
Seeing as we’re led to believe that the authors who write these articles are corporate lawyers, it’d be nice if whoever wrote this article knew the first thing about litigation, like oh, I don’t know – the definition of “discovery”!
@ Discovery 101 – who are you kidding: corporate lawyers Don’t know the first thing about litigation!
It’s sad to say it, but Milliner has weeded out a lot of the older, more experienced partners leaving the younger ones to flog the brand. The business rides on it’s reputation, which by and large, isn’t what it used to be.
No doubt this is reflected across the industry, as always, Mallies were more ruthless. It will be interesting to see financial results in the coming months.
Centroite. Read the case, the file in question is a one off on a laptop. No one asked for the server based version so no easy way to find it and not backed up