Accounting

Freedom Foods and its auditor Deloitte have been hit with a shareholder class action after a shock announcement last week of more than $590 million in write-downs stemming from accounting irregularities.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has succeeded in striking out claims that it made misrepresentations to Rio Tinto when it appointed a partner nearing the mandatory retirement age to a five-year project with the mining giant.

PricewaterhouseCoopers won't get a chance to seek summary dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a former company director who claims her notice of termination through DocuSign was invalid and that she was denied entitlements, with a judge saying the former employee had a claim and that the parties needed to "just get on with it".

Freedom Foods and its auditor Deloitte are facing a class action investigation after a bombshell announcement of more than $590 million in write-downs stemming from accounting irregularities stretching back several years.

A $50 million settlement has been reached in a long-running shareholder class action against defunct vocational training company Vocation that also spawned multiple cross-claims against the failed company's auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, law firm Johnson Winter & Slattery and individual directors.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is seeking to strike out the misleading and deceptive conduct claims in a $4 million age discrimination lawsuit brought by a former partner, calling them "farcical" and "absurd".

PricewaterhouseCoopers is seeking to strike out a lawsuit brought by a former director who claims her notice of termination was invalid because it was delivered through DocuSign.

A PwC director who was terminated after suffering a back injury at work has sued the accounting giant claiming that her notice of termination was invalid because it was delivered through DocuSign.

A judge has denied Fuji Xerox's attempt to strike out parts of the defences of Ernst & Young and a former Fuji director in a lawsuit over alleged massive accounting irregularities.

Notice of the discontinuance of a class action on behalf of Slater & Gordon shareholders against Pitcher Partners need not be sent to all group members, a judge has ruled, acknowledging there would be "significant practical difficulties" with trying to reach everyone.