Companies

PricewaterhouseCoopers is facing a lawsuit by the executor of a deceased estate alleging the accounting firm gave negligent advice and acted with a conflict of interest while advising on tax liabilities for the deceased’s $100 million in assets.

Supporting KPMG's bid to move a class action over the collapse of Arrium from Melboure to Sydney, former directors of the failed steel company have told the High Court the Victoria Supreme Court was impermissibly preferring the policy of its state in finding a contingency fee order made in the case could be factored into a transfer application.

Qantas argues it has “no legal responsibility” to compensate baggage handlers who, the High Court has found, the airline unlawfully sacked and replaced with contractors, partly to prevent them from engaging in industrial action.

A class action against ANZ and former subsidiary OnePath has been given the green light to “significantly expand” its case against the big four bank, over three years after the case was first filed.

Activist organisations are seeking to challenge orders to hand up communications with the Environmental Defenders Office in its failed case against Santos over the $5.6 billion Barossa gas project, arguing there was no legitimate forensic purpose for the material sought. 

Sky News has taken its fight with Isentia to the Full Federal Court, after a judge found the the media monitor was not liable for copyright infringement despite the "wholesale copying" of content distributed to government clients.

Optus has denied that it ‘cloaked’ the true dominant purpose of a Deloitte report into a major data breach in 2022, arguing on appeal that the report was privileged and that a class action should not have access to it. 

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is investigating ANZ’s dealings in its role as risk manager of 10-year government treasury bonds worth $14 billion. 

Collapsed construction and maintenance company General Trade Industries has lost its bid to revive abandoned claims against AGL in a nearly four-year old contract case over work on two Queensland gas plants, with a judge finding the company has had “more than a sufficient opportunity to plead its case”.

The funder behind two class actions against Uber, which have settled for $272 million, stands to make a tidy sum if the settlement holds up at a court approval hearing.