Shareholders in lending platform Marketlend can bring a derivative suit against its directors for allegedly misusing company funds, including spending $1.3 million on barrister chambers fees.
A property developer has been ordered to pay $11.2 million to the liquidators of Plutus Payroll after a judge found he helped an employee of the defunct payroll services company “wash” money he blackmailed from the company’s directors.
HWL Ebsworth and a former capital partner have both appealed a ruling that found the partner was invalidly expelled in 2020 but that his partnership had been dissolved from the day he sued his former firm.
A former capital partner at HWL Ebsworth has lost his argument that he remained in the firm’s partnership until last month, after a judge found he was invalidly expelled in 2020.
HWL Ebsworth has argued a former capital partner who was found to have been invalidly expelled in 2020 cannot claim a share of the law firm’s profits from then to now, saying he could not reap the benefits of partnership without the “burdens”.
A judge has ruled that HWL Ebsworth invalidly expelled a former capital partner, finding that the expulsion, which prevented him from participating in a planned float of the firm on the ASX, breached the partnership deed.
A former HWL Ebsworth capital partner alleging he was unlawfully expelled and excluded from a planned float on the ASX has argued HWLE’s late managing partner, Juan Martinez, thought the firm could “hire and fire at will” without giving proper reasons.
A judge has criticised HWL Ebsworth’s discovery efforts and ordered the law firm to try again in the firm’s dispute with a former partner claiming the company cut him out of a proposed ASX float in 2020.
A former capital partner has called on HWL Ebsworth to produce communications between managing partner Juan Martinez and other members of the management team that allegedly preceded a decision to shut him out of the law firm’s plans to float on the ASX.
HWL Ebsworth has been taken to task for its spare defence in a $4.4 million lawsuit by a former capital partner, with a judge saying the court was entitled to know how the law firm relied on the partnership deed to deny the solicitor’s right to an equitable share of firm profits.