Two former directors of defunct Gold Coast asset manager Avestra are facing a lawsuit from the company’s liquidators seeking to recover $6 million in alleged losses by three of the company’s managed investment schemes.
The High Court has declined two insurers’ request for review of a decision that left them on the hook for covering part of a $6 million class action settlement by Bank of Queensland.
An ACCC officer who was heading up a team investigating alleged cartel conduct by ANZ Banking Group and three investment banks has admitted that the regulator may have made an ‘oversight’ in a letter of comfort offered to JPMorgan ahead of the bank’s immunity application in the case.
Nine-owned Fairfax Media has been sent back to the drawing board to redo what a judge called a “very unhelpful” defence to a defamation lawsuit brought by venture capitalist Elaine Stead over articles that appeared in the Australian Financial Review about her role in the collapse of fund manager Blue Sky Alternative Investments.
During another day of cross-examination in a criminal cartel case against ANZ and two investment banks, a key ACCC officer was accused of lying about his interrogation of a key cartel witness, with the officer insisting there was nothing “sinister” in his examination.
AMP will face a class action alleging its financial representatives pushed AMP inflated insurance policies onto 100,000 customers despite knowing that better policies could be found through other providers.
Six of Australia’s biggest financial services institutions have so far paid or offered $749.7 million in compensation to hundreds of thousands of customers who were provided with non compliant financial advice or charged fees for no service, but the refunds to date are just the tip of the iceberg.
A Canadian trader is appealing a ruling that threw out his $10 million defamation case against the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over allegedly defamatory communications the regulator sent to major stockbrokers.
An ACCC investigator has come under fire from ANZ as the bank seeks to shoot holes in the criminal cartel action against it, with counsel for the bank accusing the regulator of “infecting” witness statements and erasing testimony that weakened its case.
A judge has sentenced the founder of defunct whitegoods distributor Kleenmaid to nine years in prison for his role in a $13 million fraud against Westpac, saying it would be “obnoxious and naive” to consider his crimes victimless.