ASIC has agreed to provide Westpac with the transcript of a compulsory examination of one of its traders in court proceedings accusing the bank of insider trading in relation to the $16 billion privatisation of electricity provider Ausgrid.
Consulting giant EY wants a court to dismiss a case brought by a joint venture alleging negligence in due diligence reports of Coca-Cola Amatil’s $40 million sale of fruit processing business SPC.
ACCC chair Rod Sims has mooted a raft of reforms to Australia’s merger and acquisitions regime, which he said Friday was ‘skewed towards clearance’.
A court has tossed a lawsuit by Clive Palmer’s Mineralogy against ASIC, calling it an “ill-disguised collateral attack” against the regulator over criminal proceedings against the billionaire mining magnate over $12 million in payments made to his political party in 2013.
Herbert Smith Freehills this week escaped a cross-claim that its advice made it liable for the alleged losses of Arrium’s lenders, but the judge who tossed the claim along with the banks’ cases expressed doubts about one of the law firm’s key arguments, a warning to other firms caught up in litigation as so-called concurrent wrongdoers.
Baker McKenzie has been accused of negligence in a cross claim by Chinese lender Aoyin, which faces a lawsuit by accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers for unpaid fees over advice related to a failed bid to launch a bank in Australia.
A unit of Oaktree Capital Management has been ordered to join all former shareholders of consumer brand wholesaler Marlin Brands as defendants in a case over the investment giant’s $200 million acquisition of the company that alleges fraud or wilful deceit on the part of the sellers.
A court has shut down the latest legal spat between the children of one of Australia’s richest families, finding a lawsuit over a $200 million real estate transaction was not brought in good faith and that running the case was not in the best interests of the company involved in the deal.
Australian law firm Gilbert + Tobin has advised fintech Afterpay on the largest public acquisition in Australian history under which US-based Square will acquire all of the company’s issued shares in a landmark $39 billion deal.
Melbourne-based joint venture Shepparton Partners Collective has appealed a $1.2 million judgment which found it infringed software developer QAD’s copyright by failing to pay a transfer fee to retain the licence after it acquired the iconic SPC Ardmona cannery in Victoria from Coca-Cola Amatil for $40 million.