Maurice Blackburn’s funding model rejected by a judge overseeing a beauty parade of class actions against BHP appeared structured to incentivise the firm to push up its legal fees, an appeals court said Monday on the first day of a high stakes hearing challenging a decision to shut down two of three competing cases against the mining giant.
A judge has signed off on the confidential settlement of a shareholder class action brought against KPMG relating to the failed $830 million hostile takeover of mining firm Discovery Metals, despite objections that the settlement process was “unfair and unjust”.
The former directors of collapsed mining company Termite Resources have appealed a ruling ordering them to pay $7 million in damages for allegedly breaching their duty by distributing more than $46 million to Termite’s parent company and failing to maintain a cash reserve of at least $10 million.
The ACCC will not oppose Origin Energy’s sale of the Ironback coal seam gas project to joint venture partner Australia Pacific for $231 million, less than a third of what it paid for the project ten years ago.
UGL knew a loss for its Ichthys power project was “looming” as early as February 2014, according to amended pleadings in a shareholder class action, which claims the engineering firm should have forecast a loss of $129 million for the project.
The lead applicant in a shareholder class action against global engineering firm CIMIC Group has made a bid for indemnity costs, after a last-minute subpoena of three former executives led to the trial being vacated.
A Federal Court judge has transferred a case brought against Clive Palmer and his firm Mineralogy to the Western Australian Supreme Court, where a number of suits are pending in what has been described as “litigious warfare” over the $5.8 billion Sino Iron Ore project.
Engineering firm Jacobs E&C, which was acquired by WorleyParsons last year, has said it will resist an arbitration judgment of around $132 million handed down against it in March to the operator of a Vietnamese mine.
Mining firm MACH Energy may move to strike out “inconsistent” pleadings in a $20 million lawsuit brought by its former managing director, Scott Winter, whose discovery delays have raised the ire of the judge hearing the case.
The High Court has agreed to take up an appeal by mining giant BHP Group Limited in its battle with the Australian Tax Office over an $82M tax bill.