The Federal Court has approved a $14.6 million class action settlement with private training company Ashley Services, auditors Deloitte and Grant Thornton, and Holmes Management Group, with IMF Bentham set to pocket around $4.8 million for funding the litigation.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has lost its market manipulation action against Whitebox Trading and its director Johannes Boshoff, with the court finding it was “practically impossible” that any of the trades at the centre of the case were made for an illegitimate purpose.
Law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has told the court it will appeal a judgment permanently staying its shareholder class action against AMP over the wealth manager’s fees for no service scandal.
A hearing scheduled for later this year in several class actions and an ACCC proceeding over allegations Volkswagen installed dual-mode software in diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions tests has been postponed, despite cries of prejudice from the consumer regulator.
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.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia wants a judge to ensure it doesn’t get hit with double the cost for work defending two shareholder class actions brought by rival plaintiffs law firms.
Global insurer Jardine Lloyd Thompson has won access to the identities of local councils suing it in a NSW class action brought by Quinn Emanuel alleging the broker charged the councils excessive premiums.
Law firms Maurice Blackburn and Phi Finney McDonald have stepped back from a proposed consolidation of their class actions against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and want to run their own cases again, but now with “harmonised” pleadings.
ASIC has been ordered to reveal the extent of its communications with experts that are compiling a report central to its case against AMP over alleged insurance churning by one of its former financial advisers.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is open to a proposal to consolidate two shareholder class actions filed over alleged breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism laws, but will address any “devil in the details”, a lawyer for the bank told a court Tuesday.