Jeremy Stoljar

Westpac and two other lenders have won their cases alleging they were scammed out of $500 million in loans to the Forum group of companies.

Applicants in two dismissed class actions against the Commonwealth Bank have secured an order staying an assessment of costs in the failed cases until the outcome of an appeal.

Two failed shareholder class actions against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia want to delay paying the bank’s costs until after their 62-ground appeal is heard.

A judge has criticised the pleadings in class actions against ANZ, Macquarie and Westpac over flexible commission schemes for car dealers, saying they were “inappropriate and unhelpful” in referring to documents in the banking royal commission. 

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.

Banks targeted in long-running class actions over flexible commission schemes for car dealers are resisting the plaintiffs’ bid to amend their pleadings to “get around” the defence that certain claims are time-barred.

Shareholders of Commonwealth Bank have lodged expected appeals challenging a decision tossing their class actions over alleged lax money laundering compliance, giving the Full Federal Court a chance to clarify when companies must disclose regulatory investigations.

A judge that tossed two shareholder class actions against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has found the bank did not have to alert investors to the possibility of AUSTRAC proceedings, saying investors did not expect to be apprised of the “toings and froings” of regulatory investigations.

Two class actions have failed to convince a judge that the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s money laundering compliance failure which led to a $700 million penalty was “law breaking on a grand scale” that should have been disclosed to the market, the latest shareholder case to flop after being taken to trial.

Awaiting judgment in Federal Court class actions by shareholders over its money laundering risk disclosures, the Commonwealth Bank will ask the court to reopen the case to consider the relevance of two recent decisions that found shareholders in other class actions had failed to prove loss.