A judge has criticised the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for treating timetabling orders in its insider trading case against Westpac over a $16 billion interest rate swap as though they were “traffic lights in Naples”.
A judge was “mistaken” to find that AFT Pharmaceuticals’ ads for its painkiller Maxigesic were misleading, with the Full Federal Court ruling there was an adequate scientific foundation for the ads’ claims that the drug provided faster, better pain relief than paracetamol and ibuprofen alone.
La Trobe Financial Asset Management will pay just $750,000 for misleading investors in its 48 hour and 90 day notice accounts over a period of more than three years, with a judge saying the company would have faced a penalty “well in excess” of this amount if not for reassuring correspondence from ASIC during its investigation.
As the courts open up after 18 months of online hearings, junior barristers who were recently called to the bar may be apprehensive at the move to in-person appearances. Here, ten top silks share their wisdom with new barristers on how to be an effective advocate in court.
A judge has expressed hesitation about a $750,000 penalty proposed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in its misleading advertisement case against $5.15 billion credit fund La Trobe Financial Asset Management, calling the amount “very, very modest”.
Shareholders of the collapsed Babcock & Brown have failed in their challenge to a ruling tossing their cases for damages for disclosure breaches during the global financial crisis, with an appeals court finding the investors had not shown the breaches caused any loss.
A judge has questioned why a class action against Aveo Group has “stalled” after tossing the retirement home provider’s bid to determine group members’ loss in a preliminary hearing, saying the questions in the case could not be “neatly separated”.
ASIC has agreed to provide Westpac with the transcript of a compulsory examination of one of its traders in court proceedings accusing the bank of insider trading in relation to the $16 billion privatisation of electricity provider Ausgrid.
Retirement home provider Aveo Group, which is facing a class action by residents, wants a court to determine group members’ loss in a preliminary hearing, but a judge has questioned whether he is barred from deciding the “hypothetical” question.
A judge has dismissed two cases brought by the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and other lenders against directors of the failed steel giant Arrium, saying he was not satisfied the directors’ representations on loan drawdown notices were false or that the company was insolvent when it went into voluntary administration in April 2016.