Comments made by the director of three firms accused of pushing life insurance onto vulnerable consumers during the banking royal commission may come back to haunt him in a civil penalties proceeding brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
The plaintiffs in an investor class action filed against Dick Smith’s insurers want a separate hearing from four other representative and company proceedings against the failed electronics retailer, arguing there would be only the “thinnest basis” for concurrent proceedings if their strike out application was successful.
The defendants in the Sydney Opal Tower class action have been formally banned from contacting represented group members about their claims while the proceeding remains on foot, after communications were allegedly sent to apartment owners.
The hearing for a class action against National Australia Bank over allegedly worthless credit card insurance will focus on whether the bank’s allegedly unconscionable behaviour in selling these policies was systemic or confined to individual cases.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s insurance unit, CommInsure, is facing 87 criminal charges for allegedly hawking life insurance products in unsolicited telephone calls.
Japanese car maker Nissan is facing the threat of a class action in Australia over the continuously variable transmission in its Pathfinder sports utility vehicle, after recently settling five similar class actions in the US over the allegedly faulty transmissions.
Former Dick Smith executives Nick Abboud and Michael Potts have pointed the finger at the defunct electronics retailer’s other directors in response to cross claims by auditor Deloitte, which is named in two shareholder class actions over the company’s collapse.
A partner at Big Six firm Ashurst has lost his bid to stop liquidators taking control of his Point Piper home in a long-running dispute with his ex-judge neighbour, after parts of his case were dismissed as “bordering on irrational”.
Australian drug maker InterPharma will not appeal a ruling that dismissed its challenge to the validity of global pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s patent for sedative drug Precedex.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has won its bid to use evidence from US proceedings in its case against Rio Tinto alleging the mining giant misled shareholders about a Mozambique mining company purchased for US$4.2 billion.
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