Companies

Facebook and Instagram will defend against claims they misused their market power to block an Australian marketing startup from their platforms, saying the company - which sends scheduled social media posts for clients -- had breached their terms of use.

ANZ has reached an in-principle settlement in two class actions alleging it breached its responsible lending obligations by providing loans to purchasers of 7-Eleven franchises that were not financially viable.

Charges in the criminal cartel case against ANZ, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank over a $2.5 billion ANZ institutional share placement have yet to be finalised, almost a year after the proceeding was filed.

ANZ Bank executives briefly considered relaunching and repricing a botched $2.5 billion equity capital raising at the heart of two groundbreaking enforcement actions, and the decision by the share placement's underwriters to instead pick up a $790 million shortfall deprived investors of lower priced shares, a court has been told.

Litigation funder Litigation Capital Management will snap up 30 percent of a confidential settlement amount that KPMG has fought to keep under wraps in a shareholder class action over a failed $830 million hostile takeover bid of mining firm Discovery Metals.

A settlement has been reached in a class action against KPMG alleging it providing a misleading expert report to copper miner Discovery Metals that was used to reject a $830 million hostile takeover bid.

ANZ has reached a settlement in long-running class action proceedings alleging it hit customers with illegal fees, but the $1.5 million payout falls far short of the many millions IMF Bentham spent in funding the matter.

A judge has denied law firm Piper Alderman's request to replace an uncooperative expert witness in a class action against KPMG over a failed takeover offer, three weeks before the matter goes to trial.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has called for the big accounting firms to focus on "culture and talent" after a new report found one in five audits had no reasonable basis for clearing company financial reports of material misstatements.

Sydney hospitality giant Merivale is facing a potential class action after the Fair Work Commission terminated an expired enterprise agreement, which had its army of staff on salaries well below the industry award rate.