Westpac has lost a bid to keep group members in the dark about the premiums paid for allegedly worthless consumer credit insurance, information the bank said could inflate expectations about settlements worth $126 million reached in three class actions.
Mining company Quantum Graphite has filed proceedings against accounting firm Grant Thornton over a 2020 report that caused the Australian Stock Exchange to suspend trading in the mining company’s securities for 14 months.
A judge has raised doubts about ex-commando Heston Russell’s barrister’s claims that it “screamed from the page” of an allegedly defamatory ABC article that her client committed war crimes.
ASIC has lost a case accusing the Commonwealth Bank of Australia of hitting customers with $55 million in unauthorised fees, with a judge finding that nearly 1 million customers charged the fees should have known that even banks “sometimes make mistakes”.
Federal prosecutors pursuing a case against Members Equity have lost an appeal of a ruling that threw out half the charges against the direct bank as time barred, with an appeals court finding the ASIC Act imposes a hard deadline for bringing a criminal case of misleading or deceptive conduct.
A judge has questioned a tiered contingency fee arrangement in a proposed group costs order by the law firm running a shareholder class action against Crown, asking whether the lower-end percentages were “meaningless”.
Insurer Allianz has lost its bid to claw back millions in performance bonds provided to collapsed building company Probuild in relation to works at a $1 billion development in the Melbourne CBD.
A PricewaterhouseCoopers partner has been taken to court over her alleged involvement in a $3.3 million scheme to defraud her husband’s employer to bankroll the couple’s lavish lifestyle, which included a $200,000 Porsche and extensive renovations to their Sydney home.
Already facing one Australian class action for cheating on diesel emissions tests, Toyota unit Hino is the subject of a fresh class action probe announced Tuesday.
Westpac has objected to several proposed notices going out to group members in a class action over ‘junk’ consumer credit insurance, which three of the Big Four banks have agreed to pay $126 million to settle.