Accounting firm Grant Thornton has thrown off prior concerns and agreed to take on the dual role of scheme administrator of a confidential settlement by KPMG in the Discovery Metals shareholder class action and costs contradictor of Piper Alderman’s $3.5 million legal bill.
The settlement of the Discovery Metals investor class action against KPMG has experienced another setback, after scheme administrator Grant Thornton flagged a potential conflict of interest in acting as a costs contradictor over Piper Alderman’s controversial $3.5 million legal bill.
Lawyers for IOOF chief financial officer David Coulter have dismissed APRA’s allegations that he breached his superannuation duties as commercially “naïve”, “absolutely desperate” and a “most egregious example” of impulsive regulatory enforcement action.
The former directors of troubled fund manager IOOF have slammed APRA for bringing a “truly hopeless” disqualification case against them, telling a court the prudential regulator’s “Stalinist” approach was deterring “good people and good companies” from participating in the superannuation industry.
Rival law firms Maurice Blackburn and Phi Finney McDonald will be allowed to work together without consolidating their separate shareholder class actions against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, after a judge ruled that the bank had overstated the potential for extra costs and delays.
The prudential regulator has opened the first day of its case against IOOF directors and entities by claiming the wealth manager’s liability is “plain as a pike staff”, as IOOF contends the regulator’s case is “artificial and theoretical” and “overly simplistic”.
An appeals court has tossed a challenge to the dismissal of an investor class action against the Public Trustee of Queensland over a failure to predict the 2008 collapse of Gold Coast-based finance group Octaviar, finding that the class had run a case based on allegations outside of its claims.
A judge has questioned whether he should approve the $3 million legal bill in the settled Discovery Metals shareholder class action against KPMG, amid concerns the plaintiff’s lawyers, Piper Alderman, breached legal profession regulations by failing to update their estimated costs.
A judge has signed off on the confidential settlement of a shareholder class action brought against KPMG relating to the failed $830 million hostile takeover of mining firm Discovery Metals, despite objections that the settlement process was “unfair and unjust”.
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.