Thorn Group is the latest lender ensnared in an alleged $400 million fraud by Forum Finance, with potential funds of up to $2.2 million tied up in the collapsed equipment leasing firm.
Four witnesses who allegedly saw Ben Roberts-Smith kick a handcuffed man off a cliff in Afghanistan will give evidence next week in the war veteran’s defamation trial, which has been disrupted by COVID-19 restrictions in NSW.
The director of the Forum Group companies accused of a $360 million fraud involving at least three major banks can’t return to Australia from Greece because he has COVID-19, his lawyer has told the Federal Court.
IP Australia has appealed a ruling granting drug company Ono Pharmaceutical a patent extension for a cancer immunotherapy drug, calling it an “impermissible gloss” on the Patents Act that is at odds with the law’s purpose.
Trial in the defamation case by war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith against Nine may face additional delays or be transferred out of Sydney after the NSW Government extended the city’s COVID-19 restrictions by two weeks.
Japanese bankng giant SMBC has emerged as the latest lender with exposure to an alleged fraud carried out by Sydney-based Forum Finance, with proceedings filed seeking recovery of almost $99 million it says it paid to a unit of Forum Group and controversial director Bill Papas.
Investment banks accused in the criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement will not lose their right to a fair trial with the release of a judgment finding the prosecutors’ indictment deficient, a judge has ruled.
The Federal Court has ordered the winding up of Forum Finance, which has been accused by Westpac and French investment bank Societe Generale of a $263 million fraud, as details of the company’s jetsetting director’s planned return to Australia from Europe remain murky.
A judge has approved a $50 million settlement in a shareholder class action against failed training company Vocation and auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, but questioned whether the $10.9 million commission and $12.75 million legal bill could have been “materially lower” had the case been run by one funder and firm instead of two.
A judge has ordered the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to file a replacement indictment to address defects in the document at the centre of its criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement in August 2015.