Mastercard can pursue an appeal of a ruling for the competition regulator requiring the credit card giant to hand over communications about its agreements with retailers, which are at the centre of a misuse of market power case.
Mayne Pharma has won a dispute with US drug maker Cosette over the termination of a $672 million merger agreement, with a judge finding Mayne did not breach its continuous disclosure obligations by failing to disclose a letter from the US FDA sooner.
Facing allegations that it misused its market power with major retailers, Mastercard is challenging a ruling for the ACCC that lays bare discussions about merchant agreements involving inhouse lawyers.
Mastercard has lost its claim for legal professional privilege over communications between its chief financial officer in Singapore and in-house counsel about merchant agreements the ACCC alleges were anti-competitive.
A judge has found that Mastercard can maintain legal professional privilege over a document that was inadvertently sent to the ACCC in 2020 after lawyers at Baker McKenzie had to review 100,000 documents in less than two months.
Mastercard says legal professional privilege remained over a document after a junior lawyer “inadvertently” sent it to the ACCC in 2020 while the credit card giant was trying to dissuade the regulator from continuing an investigation into alleged anti-competitive conduct.
Mastercard has pushed back on the ACCC’s argument that it waived privilege over communications with lawyers, saying it would “take the law of waiver to a place it has never been before”.
The former CEO of the Star was not responsible for every aspect of the business and instead played a “supervisory role”, a court has heard in ASIC’s case over the casino’s money laundering failures.
Star Entertainment’s management and board cannot shirk responsibility for turning a blind eye to money laundering risks by pointing the finger at each other, ASIC has told a court.
A business lender that issued personal loans is on the hook for unlicensed credit activity, but ASIC’s action against the director has failed, with a judge finding the regulator was “entirely indifferent” to the circumstances of the case.