Accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers is resisting a notice to produce audit files in a consolidated shareholder class action over the collapse of education and training company Vocation, arguing its partners face a real risk of criminal and civil penalty proceedings and are entited to claim privilege against self-incrimination.
The threat of civil penalties is growing for troubled financial services provider IOOF, after the prudential regulator used its new superannuation powers to issue directions to two IOOF entities for failing to comply with licence conditions.
The ACCC will not oppose Origin Energy’s sale of the Ironback coal seam gas project to joint venture partner Australia Pacific for $231 million, less than a third of what it paid for the project ten years ago.
A ruling by a judge deciding a four-way contest to run a shareholder class action against AMP is expected this week, a judgment significant not just because it is the first time a court in Australia has been asked to choose among so many competing representative cases.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions has pared its criminal cartel case against Country Care Group and two individuals, cutting over 100 charges in an indictment that details two alleged cartel agreements the Australian mobility equipment provider entered into in relation to bids on NSW government tenders.
ANZ has recruited seasoned class actions lawyer Ken Adams to be its next group general counsel as the bank faces two cases over a botched share placement and braces for the possibility of more litigation in the wake of the Banking Royal Commission.
UGL knew a loss for its Ichthys power project was “looming” as early as February 2014, according to amended pleadings in a shareholder class action, which claims the engineering firm should have forecast a loss of $129 million for the project.
The lead applicant in a shareholder class action against global engineering firm CIMIC Group has made a bid for indemnity costs, after a last-minute subpoena of three former executives led to the trial being vacated.
The High Court has granted ASIC special leave to appeal a judgment that let a former director of Gold Coast finance company MFS Group partially off the hook for $147.5 million in misappropriated funds, after ASIC argued the High Court should intervene to clarify the scope of the word “officer” under the Corporations Act.
AMP’s financial planning unit has admitted it breached the Corporations Act when at least one of its representatives engaged in so-called insurance policy churning, in a case brought by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission that will now head to a hearing on penalties next month.
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