Westpac has agreed to pay a whopping $1.3 billion civil penalty to resolve AUSTRAC enforcement action over the bank’s 23 million breaches of money laundering and counter-terrorism laws.
An appeals court has set aside an order requiring Alex Elliott, the son of the funder behind the Banksia securities class action, to give a “full and frank” explanation of his role in an alleged fraudulent scheme to inflate legal fees in the case.
The director of the beleaguered Mayfair investment group, who has been self-represented in winding up proceedings by ASIC, has now entered into a late stage retainer with law firm Ashurst, with his barrister saying he could no longer manage the case on his own after the regulator filed a lengthy affidavit.
A former general counsel of AMP who claims she was sacked from the wralth management firm after raising concerns about its fees for no services conduct is looking to strike out defence claims that she “frequently and openly disparaged” the company’s board, as well as claims that she was being performance managed.
A former PricewaterhouseCoopers employee has lost his bid to bring a discrimination claim against the accounting firm, with a judge finding he didn’t have direct evidence that he was discriminated against because of his bipolar disorder.
A judge has ordered 17 companies connected to Mayfair’s “failed” IPO Wealth Fund to be wound up after finding the fund’s director put investor money at risk through “highly speculative” investments to make a windfall for himself.
Three former Macquarie Bank financial advisors who claim the bank underpaid them have successfully appealed a decision ordering them to hand over personal tax assessments, with an appeals court finding that the most the bank could make of the documents was to “inflict a degree of embarrassment” on its ex-employees.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia has resolved a lawsuit brought by a former general manager alleging he lost his job for blowing the whistle on a system allegedly used by staff to inflate their bonuses.
Companies associated with Mayfair’s IPO Wealth Fund should be wound up because they contained assets “artificially inflated” in value and ran what was effectively a Ponzi scheme, the Victoria Supreme Court has heard.
AUSTRAC has slugged US financial services giant State Street Bank and Trust Company with a $1.24 million fine for failing to report international funds transfers in breach of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism laws.