The banks and high-ranking executives targeted in pared-down criminal cartel proceedings over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement are taking new steps to shut down the long-running case, including further probes into the ACCC’s conduct during its investigation into the alleged cartel.
Prosecutors have withdrawn two-thirds of the charges in a criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement and have dropped their case against former Citigroup CEO Stephen Roberts, according to a lawyer in the case.
Six of Australia’s biggest financial services firms have paid or offered to pay a total of $1.86 billion to customers who were wrongly charged fees for no service or were given bad advice.
A judge has ordered the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to file a replacement indictment to address defects in the document at the centre of its criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement in August 2015.
A Victoria Supreme Court judge weighing for the first time an application by a law firm for a percentage cut of recoveries in class actions has been told to reject the bid because group members would fare better under the firm’s current no win, no fee funding arrangement.
JPMorgan is fighting to keep details of failed settlement talks with ASIC under wraps in criminal cartel proceedings over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement, as ANZ seeks to uncover whether the corporate regulator made a deal with the investment bank ahead of the cartel case being filed.
Several banks and executives facing criminal cartel charges over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement have won access to interview notes taken by whistleblower JP Morgan prior to it being granted immunity, which the banks say will prove inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case.
HWL Ebsworth has been ordered to hand over file notes to a former client and whistleblower suing ANZ for unfair dismissal, with a judge rejecting the law firm’s argument that the notes were created solely for the benefit of the junior solicitor taking them.
A junior solicitor’s meeting notes during an ASIC investigation of ANZ did not belong to her client despite the lawyer billing for her attendance at the meeting, law firm HWL Ebsworth has argued before a skeptical judge.
The judge who vowed last year to move a criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement to trial “before we all retire” will soon weigh the ACCC’s claim for privilege over statements from JPMorgan witnesses it has been accused of pressuring during its investigation, two months after a different judge heard a still unresolved privilege fight in the long-running case.