A judge has dismissed an application by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to investigate two Sydney-based liquidators, saying the regulator had failed to prove its suspicions about the pair.
The Quintis shareholder class action trial could be delayed for almost two years, while ASIC runs its civil proceedings case against the founder of the sandalwood oil production company.
The Democratic Republic of East Timor has lost its bid to dismiss a lawsuit brought by oil and gas firm Lighthouse Corporation over $328 million in alleged losses stemming from a failed fuel supply agreement, with a judge finding the court has jurisdiction to hear the case after an ICSID panel declined to arbitrate the dispute.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn has fired its opening salvo in a high-stakes appeal of a judge’s decision rejecting its class action against BHP over the Brazilian dam failure, saying the ruling deprived group members of pocketing higher net returns on any recovery and of choosing a more experienced firm to run the case for them.
Accounting firm Pitcher Partners, which is facing two shareholder class actions over auditing work for Slater & Gordon, is considering filing claims of its own against the law firm’s current auditor, Ernst & Young.
Singapore-based cable manufacturer Midland Metals has lost its appeal of a judgment that found the Australian Cablemakers Association did not violate the consumer laws when it sent letters to several Ministers complaining that an electrical cable supplied by Midland was unsafe.
Accounting giant Deloitte has failed in its bid to strike out claims made in two shareholder class actions alleging it was careless in auditing the financial statements of electronics retailer Dick Smith ahead of its collapse in 2016.
Insurance Australia Limited is facing a class action alleging it engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by pushing worthless add-on insurance onto individuals purchasing motor vehicles through authorised dealers.
A judge has rejected a bid by former directors of Slater & Gordon to throw out cross claims brought by Pitcher Partners in two shareholder class actions alleging the accounting firm wrongly signed off on the law firm’s financial reports ahead of a share price nosedive, saying it was possible Pitcher Partners’ claimed reliance on representations by the directors was reasonable.
A judge has agreed to postpone a trial against logistics provider GetSwift until next year when a class action and a lawsuit by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission related to the company’s disclosures will be heard consecutively rather than concurrently.