A judge has signed off on a $95 million settlement in a shareholder class action against Spotless after a heated exchange saw the funders backing the lawsuit drop their bid for $1.5 million in costs above their commission.
A self-represented James Mawhinney, the director of troubled Mayfair 101 director, has accused ASIC in court of misleading the judge in an ex-parte application brought in August that saw provisional liquidators appointed to the investment firm and Mawhinney banned from transferring assets out of Australia.
The public hearings before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services as part of an inquiry into litigation funding and regulation of the class action industry proved to be polarised and, at times, hostile and adversarial in tone. But the inquiry has proven to be a useful and insightful process and questioning by the Committee served to unearth not only relevant factual information and important empirical data but also touched on the commercial and financial interests of those on both sides of the debate.
Race car driver and former owner of the famous Byron Bay Hotel, Max Twigg, misappropriated around $100 million in family trust money, taking steps to conceal the transfer of funds from his mother, a court has found.
A former University of Technology Sydney professor based in Shanghai has filed a lawsuit accusing the university of race and age discrimination, alleging his contract was not renewed after the dean of the business school said he wanted to appoint a Chinese person to his position.
Chevron has taken Australian petrol station operator Ampol to court over its allegedly infringing use of the ‘Caltex’ brand, eight months after the US oil giant severed the companies’ trade mark licence agreement.
A former executive of BlueScope Steel has pleaded guilty to obstructing an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission price fixing investigation, in the first criminal charges ever brought against an individual in relation to an ACCC probe.
Social media giant Facebook has come out swinging over the Morrison government’s proposed news media bargaining code, threatening to stop Australians from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram if the code becomes law.
Slater and Gordon has brought proceedings against a sacked principal lawyer who led the firm’s largest practice in its Penrith, NSW office, seeking injunctions to prevent her from poaching clients allegedly worth over $1.3 million in billing revenue.
Financial services giant IOOF Holdings will be on the hook for any judgments or settlements reached in two class actions and an ASIC lawsuit as part of its $1.4 billion acquisition of NAB wealth management unit MLC.
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