Victoria

Former directors of steelmaker Arrium have rejected shareholder class action claims that the company's collapse was foreseeable, calling claims they had their heads in the sand “arrant nonsense”. 

Hitting back at trial in a shareholder class action, software company Nuix has told a judge it was “completely unfounded” to allege auditor PwC did not push back on management’s claims about its budget.

A judge has given the nod to an amendment in a class action over Victoria's COVID-era hotel quarantine program that will exclude non-retail and hospitality businesses, but he won't make the order operate retrospectively.

A shareholder class action against Nuix is the first to test statutory due diligence defences available under the Corporations Act, a court heard Tuesday, when the class action took the court to internal emails describing the company as "tragically hopeless" at winning new business.

KPMG failed to bring the necessary scepticism to the task of auditing failing steel manufacturer Arrium, instead leaving contradictory evidence unresolved and giving the company a clean bill of health, a shareholder class action has told the court.

A shareholder class action against Nuix has argued that its IPO should never have gone ahead, taking the court to email exchanges about its history of disappointing results, which the tech company's former CFO called "worse than terrible".

A shareholder class action against KPMG and ex-Arrium directors says the company's accounts were infected by "chronic and systemic overoptimism", with the former operator of Whyalla Steelworks portraying as viable a business that was impaired up to $2.8 billion.

Developer Urbex has launched proceedings seeking the return of a $2.85 million deposit on a $59 million contract to buy a development site in Melbourne's east, saying it validly terminated the agreement after an adverse contamination and geotechnical report.

Sportsbet's 'fast code' betting system was not a genuine telephone betting service because customers had already transmitted  information before making the call, according to a class action which argues punters would not have placed bets had they known the system was illegal. 

As proof of its popularity as a class action jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of Victoria will hear opening submissions in three class action trials on Monday, an unprecedented number in a single day for the court.