The ACCC’s practice of successively refining witness statements without saving draft versions was “quite unfair”, says a judge overseeing the competition regulator’s criminal cartel case over a botched ANZ share placement.
Lawyers for JPMorgan went to the ACCC’s office to review a draft statement of the investment bank’s then managing director Jeffrey Herbert-Smith, an immunity witness for the competition regulator in its troubled criminal cartel case over an ANZ share placement, a court has heard.
A judge has declined to quash the indictment in a high-profile criminal case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement but sent prosecutors back to the drawing board to remedy its defects, calling the state of affairs “a complete shemozzle”.
JPMorgan’s general counsel for Australia and New Zealand was allowed to sit in on witness interviews during an ACCC cartel investigation into ANZ’s $2.5 billion share placement despite allegedly being involved in the cartel conduct, a judge has heard.
An in-principle settlement has been reached with law firms Arnold Bloch Leibler and Slater & Gordon in a class action over Slater & Gordon’s disastrous $1.2 billion Quindell acquisition.
Last week’s judgment denouncing the scandalous behaviour of the legal team running the Banksia Securities class action cast a spotlight on the conduct of lawyers for some of the defendants, asking whether “untenable” defences were maintained beyond an acceptable point in the case.
Two class actions against Pitcher Partners and Arnold Bloch Leibler over advice given ahead of Slater & Gordon’s disastrous $1.2 billion Quindell acquisition will proceed to trial next month after mediation between the parties failed to resolve the cases.
Five enforcement officers of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be cross-examined by lawyers for banks facing price fixing charges over their conduct following ANZ’s $2.5 billion capital raising six years ago.
Lawyers running the scandal-ridden Banksia class action have been struck from the roll of practitioners, will face criminal investigation and must pay group members $11.7 million in damages.
A judge overseeing a cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement has granted ANZ’s bid for unredacted documents which the bank says will support its claims that the case should be permanently stayed because of improper dealings between whistleblower JPMorgan, ASIC and the ACCC.