The judge who dismissed the ACCC’s challenge to Pacific National’s acquisition of Aurizon’s Acacia Ridge Terminal in Queensland had no power to accept an undertaking by the rail operator as an answer to the competition regulator’s case, an appeals court has been told.
An ACCC officer who was heading up a team investigating alleged cartel conduct by ANZ Banking Group and three investment banks has admitted that the regulator may have made an ‘oversight’ in a letter of comfort offered to JPMorgan ahead of the bank’s immunity application in the case.
The Federal Government has blessed the ACCC’s request for an extended public inquiry into Google and Facebook as well as a separate probe into the tech giants’ advertising practices, arming the regulator with the power to collect information on the companies’ advertising and search algorithms.
Former Bellamy’s Australia director Jan Cameron has been charged by prosecutors after an ASIC investigation over her alleged failure to disclose her substantial stake in the organic baby food company.
Vodafone has won its case against the ACCC over its proposed merger with rival telecommunications company TPG, with a judge ruling the tie-up would not substantially lessen competition and had a real chance of becoming a “competitive force” against the two dominant players in the market, Telstra and Optus.
During another day of cross-examination in a criminal cartel case against ANZ and two investment banks, a key ACCC officer was accused of lying about his interrogation of a key cartel witness, with the officer insisting there was nothing “sinister” in his examination.
Volkswagen has appealed a record $125 million penalty handed down over its emissions cheating scandal by a judge who criticised a $75 million settlement agreement with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as “manifestly inadequate”.
A Canadian trader is appealing a ruling that threw out his $10 million defamation case against the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over allegedly defamatory communications the regulator sent to major stockbrokers.
An ACCC investigator has come under fire from ANZ as the bank seeks to shoot holes in the criminal cartel action against it, with counsel for the bank accusing the regulator of “infecting” witness statements and erasing testimony that weakened its case.
A judge has sentenced the founder of defunct whitegoods distributor Kleenmaid to nine years in prison for his role in a $13 million fraud against Westpac, saying it would be “obnoxious and naive” to consider his crimes victimless.