A Sydney-based broker is facing a class action investigation on behalf of customers who bought binary options over a six-year period, after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission banned the risky derivatives earlier this year after finding they were likely to cause “significant detriment”.
The director of Forum Finance, which has been accused by Westpac and Societe Generale of a $263 million fraud, is in Europe and will return to Australia over the weekend, although he has refused to tell his lawyer his exact location, a court has heard.
The auditor of stockbroker Halifax Investment Services, whose 2008 collapse left around $200 million in client funds trapped, has pleaded guilty to the first criminal charges brought over auditing services in Australia.
Law firm HWL Ebsworth says it has avoided any negative financial impact from its connection with Sydney financial firm Forum Finance, which has been accused by Westpac of a $263 million fraud.
A settlement reached in a lawsuit by the liquidators of collapsed steel giant Arrium against 10 former company directors accused of insolvent trading has been approved by a judge, who noted that while the settlement amount was “substantial”, the deal involved a “substantial compromise”.
A judge has rejected a request that he approve a settlement with the lead applicants in a class action by investors in failed music streaming platform Guvera that would dispense with the class action without notice being sent to group members.
Westpac and French investment bank Societe Generale have obtained freezing orders over $263 million in assets in fraud cases brought against a Sydney software firm and its director, with a court hearing that other financial institutions may also be at risk from the alleged fraud.
Canadian trader Daniel Schlaepfer has suffered a loss in his $10 million defamation case against ASIC, with an appeals court tossing the lawsuit despite finding the regulator defamed him and his firm by accusing them of unlawful market manipulation.
The founder of embattled investment group Mayfair 101, James Mawhinney, will argue that he should not be ordered to pay any penalty after the company was found to have misled investors about its financial products.
Payday lender Cigno has lost its appeal of a ruling which upheld ASIC’s first product intervention order banning the use of short-term lending models with “excessive” fees.