Two key witnesses from JPMorgan have been grilled by lawyers for three major investments banks named in a high-stakes criminal cartel case as the banks seek to cast doubt on how the ACCC gathered evidence during its almost two-year cartel investigation.
A judge has rejected a proposal to jointly hear argument for approval of settlements in two class actions against milk supplier Murray Goulburn, saying the issues in one case — led by the legal team under scrutiny for alleged professional misconduct in a separate class action — could be more complicated.
Accounting giant Ernst & Young, which has been dragged into two class actions by Slater & Gordon shareholders, has shot back at claims it was negligent in its 2015 audit report of the law firm’s UK division, which included a review of the firm’s disastrous acquisition of Quindell’s professional services arm that found no impairment on the goodwill value of the deal.
Accounting giant Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu will not face cross claims over the collapse of failed retailer Dick Smith when a hearing of three shareholder class actions kicks off in three months.
The litigation funder financing the second of two recently settled shareholder class actions against Murray Goulburn will face similar scrutiny over its commission as the funder behind the first action.
Troubled retail technology firm Irexchange is accused of misleading shareholders through three different capital raising offers, according to a new Federal Court case brought by investors who sunk over $4.5 million into the company.
A judge has consolidated competing shareholder class actions against builder Lendlease brought by rival plaintiffs law firms, but has rejected the firms’ bid to jointly run the litigation and says one of them must go.
Shareholders have appealed a ruling that found a “serious problem” with market-based causation and dismissed three cases against the liquidator of failed global financial services firm Babcock & Brown.
Shareholders of collapsed steel and mining giant Arrium have won the OK to question a one-time director over possible class action claims that former officers misled the market and that auditor KPMG was negligent in preparing a healthy financial report just two years before the company went under.
Whether judges can alter the terms of litigation funding agreements in class actions is a question that will remain unsettled for now, after litigation funder IMF Bentham chose to sidestep a lengthy, costly and risky challenge to the reach of the court’s powers.