Australian Finance Group’s proposed acquistion of rival Connective Group has raised red flags for the competition regulator, which says the tie-up would create Australia’s largest mortgage aggregator and could squeeze smaller players out.
AMP will face a class action alleging its financial representatives pushed AMP inflated insurance policies onto 100,000 customers despite knowing that better policies could be found through other providers.
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”.
Six of Australia’s biggest financial services institutions have so far paid or offered $749.7 million in compensation to hundreds of thousands of customers who were provided with non compliant financial advice or charged fees for no service, but the refunds to date are just the tip of the iceberg.
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.
Engineering services company CIMIC will fork over $32.4 million to settle a shareholder class action, with group members expected to get 40 per cent of the settlement total if the court approves the requested legal costs and funder’s commission.
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.
With Victoria set to pass legislation permitting law firms to charge contingency fees, experts have raised fears of an exodus of class actions from other states and the federal system. But the Federal Court, which hears about two-thirds of Australia’s representative proceedings, is not likely to surrender easily.
The lead applicant in a shareholder class action against laser technology company Arasor will walk away with a fraction of the approximately $508,000 in legal and other bills it has racked up in disputes with the ATO and funder International Litigation Partners following the approval of a $19.25 million class action settlement more than two years ago.
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.
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