Clifford Chance has been targeted by a phishing scam in which fraudsters sent emails purportedly from the global law firm to mislead clients into paying fraudulent bills, and at least one client was duped into paying a substantial amount of phony fees.
Deloitte is challenging a judge’s ruling that certain partners not be excused from an order to produce files of the accounting giant’s audit work for Hastie Group to shareholders in a class action over the construction company’s collapse, its latest move after a failed attempt to persuade the judge that a rogue partner had taken the only copies of the files and refused to give them back.
From a record-setting funder’s cut to the first call for ‘“proportionality”, last year saw a number of groundbreaking judgments approving class action settlements worth more than half a billion dollars. Here are the 10 biggest settlements of 2018, and the law firms and funders that negotiated them.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has promised it will stay away from the depositions of two former Rio Tinto executives in proceedings underway in the US, as it pursues a parallel case over allegedly misleading market statements the mining company made about the reserves of a $4 billion coal acquisition.
Litigation funder Investor Claim Partner won’t promise it will maintain a lower commission rate in one of the Dick Smith class actions if mediation is delayed to next year.
A Dick Smith shareholder has lost his bid to bring a separate proceeding against the failed home goods retailer while two class actions are afoot.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission claims Rio Tinto’s former CFO was referring to the write down for the reserves for two coal assets that were part of a $4 billion acquisition of Rio Tinto Coal Mozambique when he sent an email to the company CEO in January 2012 that contained the phrase “worse by far than expected”.
Liquidators for Dick Smith don’t want potential group members in two class actions against the failed retailer to learn about a new registration deadline by email, saying it would amount to spam and harassment.
Accounting giant Deloitte is digging in for a fight over a court order to produce documents to a shareholder class over the firm’s auditing of collapsed engineering company Hastie Group, saying partners forced to hand over the files don’t have access to them.
Auditing firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu wants to challenge a ruling that forces some of its partners to hand over evidence to shareholders in a class action over accounting work for collapsed engineering company Hastie Group.