A judge has ordered Australian Unity to pay a $7.1 million penalty in ASIC proceedings alleging it pumped more than $9.5 million into a risky mortgage scheme without properly vetting investors.
A judge has allowed a shareholder class action over the collapse of asset manager Blue Sky to bring insider trading claims against several short sellers, as well as brokers Credit Suisse and Argonaut Securities.
A MWL financial adviser has been banned for seven years for advising clients to invest most of their super into Keystone’s Shield Master Fund, which is suspected of misusing $480 million in investor funds.
ASIC has questions about the “bona fides” of a rental company’s appeal of a $7.4 million penalty for unlawful loan agreements, telling a court it needs to see evidence about the “very rapid decline” of the company’s financial position.
A judge has ordered ANZ to pay $250 million in penalties in four cases by ASIC – $10 million more than the bank had agreed to pay – saying ANZ had “substantially deceived” the government by overstating bond trading volumes.
Macquarie Securities has agreed to pay a $35 million penalty in a civil suit brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission alleging systemic misreporting of short sales over a 14-year period.
A judge has expressed concerns about a funder’s novel application for its costs in a partially settled shareholder class action over the collapse of mining company Cudeco, saying everyone was getting a payday except group members.
A new class action targeting Grill’d alleges the burger chain wrongly denied thousands of workers the rest breaks they were entitled to under enterprise bargaining agreements.
The liquidators of Falcon Capital, which is suspected of having misused $450 million in investor funds, have sued a Melbourne property developer, claiming he knowingly assisted Falcon to loan millions in trust money in a “dishonest and fraudulent design”.
Plus500 has lost its bid to permanently stay a class action by investors who lost money trading in highly leveraged financial products, with a court finding that the arbitration clause relied on by the online trader was unfair and void.