AUSTRAC has expanded into investigation into Star Entertainment’s compliance with anti-money laundering laws, two months after a third law firm announced a shareholder class action investigation into the casino operator on the back of damning media reports.
If evidence were needed that courts are not rubber stamping class action settlements, the scrutiny of multi-million dollar agreements in 2021 is proof positive that judicial oversight of representative proceedings is robust.
Dixon Advisory faces a second class action on behalf of investors who claim they suffered significant financial loss when the advice firm and its directors allegedly encouraged the purchase of high risk, high fee securities for their own financial gain.
Beleaguered investment group Mayfair 101 will have to pay a $30 million penalty after a judge found a $12 million penalty proposed by ASIC was “insufficient”.
Payday lender Nimble has succeeded in blocking its largest shareholder from accessing company documents relating to an impending debt refinance, with a judge finding the company’s financial woes were due to COVID-19 and not improper conduct by management.
A judge has criticised the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for treating timetabling orders in its insider trading case against Westpac over a $16 billion interest rate swap as though they were “traffic lights in Naples”.
The former CEO and chairman of Antares Energy has been banned from managing corporations for four years and hit with a $40,000 penalty for failing to disclose to the market the buyer behind an ill-fated US$254 million acquisition of Texas oil assets.
Payments processing company EML has been hit with a class action over its alleged failure to notify shareholders of concerns by Ireland’s central bank relating to compliance with anti-money laundering regulations.
Two major Zip Co investors have sued Merrill Lynch for allegedly breaching its duties as financial advisor by recommending they sell their shares in the Aussie fintech after September 1 last year, at which point Paypal’s announcement that it would enter the buy now, pay later market had sent Zip’s share price plummeting.
Shareholders in a class action against failed steel giant Arrium and KPMG are seeking an unredacted version of an audit file by KPMG to probe the accounting giant’s handling of the steel producer’s financial statements before its collapse in April 2016.