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.
The plaintiffs in an investor class action brought against the insurers of Dick Smith have lost an early bid to determine the viability of their claim, amid concerns that the total value of five separate cases against the failed retailer will exhaust the $300 million limit of two insurance policies.
Lawyers for former Vocation CEO Mark Hutchinson say the corporate regulator is “plucking numbers out of the air” in its bid to secure disqualifications of up to eight years against the former executives who breached their directors’ duties in relation to the collapsed education provider.
Two former executives of Dick Smith may seek to vacate an upcoming trial date for two class actions against the failed retailer, after recently being hit with cross claims by the company’s former auditor, Deloitte.
Allianz and a number of other insurers of Dick Smith are now facing a class action over the extent of coverage under an insurance policy for the collapsed electronics retailer’s initial public offering.
Boutique class actions law firm Phi Finney McDonald has won its bid to reserve costs incurred before its case was permanently stayed in the AMP shareholder class action beauty contest, after the firm racked up at least 1,345 hours in “sunk costs”.
In a win for the corporate watchdog, a court has found collapsed education provider Vocation engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and breached its continuous disclosure obligations by failing to inform shareholders of problems with a large government contract.
Maurice Blackburn’s shareholder class action against AMP — the only action not backed by a litigation funder — has been picked as the winner in a fierce battle of law firms vying to lead a high stakes case over the wealth manager’s fees for no service scandal.
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.
An appeal before a historic joint sitting of two courts over so-called common fund orders in class actions kicked off Monday with a full bench of six judges and a packed courtroom hearing arguments by eminent barristers for BMW and Westpac that the orders are either preemptive or pointless.