Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and Commonwealth Bank of Australia have lost a third attempt to escape a rate-rigging class action in the US, with a judge calling the banks’ arguments unpersuasive.
Bank of New York Mellon unit Pershing has become the first company in Australia to be convicted of criminal charges for breaching regulations requiring AFSL licensees to keep client money in separate bank accounts.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has told a parliamentary committee that it plans to bring more than five court proceedings against AMP before the end of the year and has referred a number of investigations into the financial services giant for possible criminal prosecution.
The High Court has awarded $27 million in unpaid commissions to a Nigerian entrepreneur tricked into terminating his contract with international bank note manufacturer Securency, reversing a Full Court judgment which slashed his award.
Former financial adviser Graeme Miller has been jailed for six years after pleading guilty to misappropriating $1.865 million in client funds in what a judge described as a “cruel and deceitful betrayal”.
A recent decision in ASIC’s case against ANZ has highlighted the potential risks of waiver of client legal privilege, with the Federal Court observing that the distinctions can be “fine”. While ANZ avoided having to disclose its legal advice to the regulator, the decision is a reminder of the potential pitfalls of referring to legal advice in correspondence, and that pleading a state of mind in litigation carries risks from a privilege perspective, says Hall & Wilcox partner Jacob Uljans.
Shine Lawyers is investigating two new class actions against Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac’s BT Funds Management over allegedly excessive insurance premiums, a week after filing a similar case against AMP’s life insurance arm.
The law firm behind a long-running class action against Pitcher Partners over its auditing of Slater and Gordon is seeking court approval to drop the case, leaving the funder that bankrolled the proceeding to defend an application for indemnity costs.
AMP has been hit with a cliass action by a group of financial planners over changes to its buyer of last resort policy last year, which cut the number of authoried advisers and retreated from a promise to buy back their businesses at a price based on a set multiple.
A court has granted ASIC’s bid to wind up an illegal managed investment scheme whose operators fled to India following the “systematic misappropriation” of almost $7 million in investor funds.