Westpac-owned BankSA has admitted that convicted Ponzi schemer Michael Samra withdrew funds at “near excess” of the bank’s limits and had insufficient money to honour cheques drawn on his company’s bank account.
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 scope of the government’s power to detain individuals is “a matter of considerable public importance”, a judge has said, shooting down the Commonwealth’s bid for costs after it won the dismissal of a class action brought on behalf of asylum seekers who allege they were unlawfully imprisoned in Australian immigration detention centres.
Law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has launched a shareholder class action against engineering and infrastructure firm RCR Tomlinson after “catastrophic” losses caused by $57 million in write-downs on two of the company’s North Queensland solar farms.
The Full Federal Court has dismissed a challenge to a ruling that chose one of three shareholder class actions to proceed against GetSwift, saying the court had the power to permanently stay competing cases. But an injunction blocking the losing law firms from communicating with clients was going too far, it said.
A groundbreaking judgment by the Full Federal Court over competing class actions will be handed down Tuesday morning and is expected to give judges much needed guidance on how to move forward when confronted, as they increasingly are, with multiple proceedings over the same alleged misconduct.
A judge has rejected a bid by the applicants in two shareholder class actions against online fashion retailer Surfstitch to push forward with a proposed settlement of the cases without an opt-out notice to group members.
Defending a class action alleging its vehicle warranties were worthless, a unit of car leasing company McMillan Shakespeare said it has paid out claims to more 3,600 drivers, and was obligated to consider each claim “on its merits”.
The accountants for fraudster Scott Williams, the man behind the multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme Centaur Litigation, lost a bid to amend their defence to limit their liability in a $32 million case brought by liquidators of the failed funder.
Renewable energy company Infigen Energy has agreed to settle a class action over the January 2017 Currandooley bushfire that was sparked by a crow that was electrocuted from a transmission line carrying power from the company’s Woodlawn wind farm near Tarago, New South Wales.