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.
A Federal Court judgment has laid out when a responsible entity of a managed investment scheme will be indemnified for its operating costs and when it can recoup legal costs in defending lawsuits brought over trust property.
Managing partner of HWL Ebsworth Juan Martinez has lost his bid for an order for costs against a former capital partner in a $4.4 million suit after the partner unsuccessfully sought to have the law firm boss named as representative defendant.