A court battle between the Australian Taxation Office and PricewaterhouseCoopers over the scope of legal professional privilege claimed by one of its major clients, meat processing giant JBS Australia, has hit a preliminary snag over the consulting giant’s representation of JBS, with a judge warning he might compel the company and its subsidiaries to engage independent lawyers.
A judge has given his blessing to investors to pursue a class action against financial services firm Linchpin Capital and its subsidiary Endeavour Securities, saying there was a strong possibility the failed companies’ alleged liability would be covered by an insurance policy.
A bid by the applicant to restrict a securities class action against recycling company Sims Metal Management to shareholders who have registered to join the case has been shot down by a judge, who said the application was not in the interests of justice but “in the interests of injustice”.
A judge has issued a temporary injunction stopping roadworks along the Buangor and Ararat stretch of the Western Highway improvement project in Victoria ahead of a trial over the cultural significance of the area for its traditional owners.
The son of Banksia Securities class action funder Mark Elliott questioned his father on whether it was “right” to rip up a $64 million settlement with the collapsed lender’s trustee if the deal didn’t guarantee him a $12.8 million commission, a court has heard.
Lawyer Alex Elliott has told a judge he didn’t know when he postdated cheques for members of the Banksia class action legal team that it was done to mislead the appeals court in the case, but has admitted that in hindsight “it doesn’t look good”.
An employment partner with Norton Rose Fulbright, who has been referred by a judge to the legal watchdog for possible professional misconduct in a case by a former colleague, is under scrutiny in a second Fair Work suit, this time for allegedly destroying evidence.
The mastermind behind an alleged fraudulent scheme by members of the legal team running the class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities was a “brilliant operator”, his son has told a court.
Pharmaceutical ingredients company Alkaloids of Australia and former export manager Christopher Joyce have been charged over a cartel following a price-fixing investigation by the ACCC linked to the active ingredient in stomach cramp drug Buscopan.
The son of the lawyer and funder at the centre of an alleged fee scandal in the Banksia Securities class action was not his father’s righthand man because the late Mark Elliott did not need a righthand man, his co-accused, former senior barrister Norman O’Bryan, has told a court.