A judge’s decision to throw out a shareholder class action against engineering company Worley is a loss for plaintiffs lawyers and could result in fewer listed companies willing to settle cases alleging they breached their disclosure obligations, but the ruling is not likely to have a significant chilling effect on securities litigation.
A judge has given the greenlight to AUSTRAC’s $1.3 billion penalty against Westpac over the bank’s 23 million breaches of money laundering and counter-terrorism laws, the biggest regulatory fine ever paid by an Australian company.
Five investment banks facing a class action for their alleged rigging of foreign exchange rates have slammed the “unclear” and “incredibly vague” case, saying it contains “literally trillions” of possible variations of the cartel agreement allegedly entered into.
The Murray Goulburn class action run by Elliott Legal bears similarities to the Banksia class action, a case rife with scandal and offered up by opponents as proof of the problems with the class action regime. The leading lawyers were the same in both cases. In one they have abandoned any claim to their fees and have walked away from their careers. In the other they walked away with $5 million.
The judge overseeing a settled class action against Murray Goulburn, which earned millions of dollars for the same legal team accused of serious misconduct in the running of the Banksia class action, invited the parties last month to reopen the case, concerned he had been misled when approving the lawyers’ costs.
Westpac has agreed to pay a whopping $1.3 billion civil penalty to resolve AUSTRAC enforcement action over the bank’s 23 million breaches of money laundering and counter-terrorism laws.
Mining giant BHP is seeking to have foreign group members shut out of a shareholder class action over the Fundao dam failure in Brazil five years ago.
Westpac anti-money laundering compliance troubles continue to worsen, with the bank reporting an additional 365,000 incomplete or inaccurate threshold transaction reports to AUSTRAC.
A judge has warned AUSTRAC that it needs to finalise its case against Westpac over anti-money laundering breaches as the regulator readies a slew of new claims, quashing any hopes of a trial this year.
Dairy cooperative Murray Goulburn has launched proceedings against AIG Australia seeking to recover 20 per cent of a $42 million class action settlement it paid, plus the legal costs of defending two class actions.