Charles Colquhoun

JPMorgan Australia chairman Rob Priestley told Citigroup and Deutsche Bank executives not to “panic” about picking up a shortfall in the sale of ANZ shares, a court has heard in the ACCC’s criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement.

A senior ACCC officer tried to dissuade ASIC from investigating alleged insider trading by JPMorgan because of fears it would “upset” the competition regulator’s criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement, a court has heard.

A senior ACCC officer was probed Tuesday on whether the competition regulator updated its guidelines for taking witness statements in July in response to criticism of investigators’ methods in the cartel probe over ANZ’s $2.5 billion share placement.

A former JPMorgan managing director has said the three investment banks at the centre of an alleged cartel made individual decisions to trade “gently” in ANZ shares but were conscious of their fellow underwriters’ risks following a botched share placement in 2015.

JPMorgan bigwigs who are key witnesses for the prosecution in its cartel case over ANZ’s botched share placement in 2015 will be questioned by Citibank and Deutsche ahead of trial.

The ACCC’s practice of successively refining witness statements without saving draft versions was “quite unfair”, says a judge overseeing the competition regulator’s criminal cartel case over a botched ANZ share placement.

Lawyers for JPMorgan went to the ACCC’s office to review a draft statement of the investment bank’s then managing director Jeffrey Herbert-Smith, an immunity witness for the competition regulator in its troubled criminal cartel case over an ANZ share placement, a court has heard.

A judge has declined to quash the indictment in a high-profile criminal case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement but sent prosecutors back to the drawing board to remedy its defects, calling the state of affairs “a complete shemozzle”.

JPMorgan’s general counsel for Australia and New Zealand was allowed to sit in on witness interviews during an ACCC cartel investigation into ANZ’s $2.5 billion share placement despite allegedly being involved in the cartel conduct, a judge has heard.

A judge has rejected part of IVF provider Virtus Health’s bid for redactions in a recent decision from the court temporarily blocking the company from purchasing rival Adora Fertility, saying some of the confidentiality claims were “staggering” and “border on ridiculous.”