The stage is set for a beauty parade of two shareholder class actions against Freedom Foods and Deloitte, and the judge overseeing the cases has embraced the recommendation of the High Court to appoint an independent barrister to represent group members in the contest.
Deloitte has failed to set aside a request for documents recording talks with partners about retirement after they turned 62, in a closely watched age discrimination lawsuit challenging the accounting firm’s mandatory retirement policy.
Deloitte is seeking to set aside a subpoena for documents recording chats with partners about retirement after they turned 62, in a closely watched age discrimination lawsuit challenging the accounting firm’s mandatory retirement policy.
A judge has approved a “disappointing” $25 million settlement in long-running class action litigation over the collapse of electronics retailer Dick Smith with claims worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
A partner who hit Deloitte with a $3.8 million age discrimination lawsuit says the accounting giant has been treating him as an “inactive partner” who is on the verge of retiring, including by failing to conduct a performance assessment for the 2021 financial year.
Accounting giant Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has admitted in a Federal Court defence that it expects its partners to retire at the age of 62, but it says there is no obligation for partners to depart the firm at that age.
A $25 million settlement has been reached in three long-running shareholder class actions over the collapse of electronics retailer Dick Smith, under which the funders that backed the litigation will not recover their costs and shareholders recoveries will be small.
A partner bringing a $3.8 million age discrimination lawsuit against Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu will not seek to replead claims struck out earlier this month that the accounting giant made misrepresentations to Rio Tinto.
Freedom Foods and its auditor Deloitte have been hit with a shareholder class action after a shock announcement last week of more than $590 million in write-downs stemming from accounting irregularities.
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has succeeded in striking out claims that it made misrepresentations to Rio Tinto when it appointed a partner nearing the mandatory retirement age to a five-year project with the mining giant.