Trials

Former SAS corporal Ben Roberts-Smith has lost his defamation case against Nine-owned Fairfax, with a judge finding Thursday it was true that Australia’s most decorated soldier committed civilian murders in Afghanistan.

Trial in a protracted class action against Deloitte over the collapse of construction group Hastie has been abandoned, signalling a settlement is in the works.

One of the two remaining class actions against the Department of Defence over the use of alleged toxic firefighting foam at military bases across the country has settled for $132.7 million on the eve of trial, with the final case going back to mediation.

Racing NSW has accused its Victorian counterpart of planning an anti-competitive agreement with five other states to exclude it from the thoroughbred racing industry, as it seeks documents to bring potential claims.

Unless the parties can reach a last minute settlement over the weekend, trial in a class action against the Department of Defence over the use of alleged toxic firefighting foam at military bases across the country will begin Monday.

Two executives involved in ANZ’s $2.5 billion equity capital raising have stood by arguments that the book was covered when the bank’s underwriters took up $750 million of the shares, despite ASIC’s allegations of “receding demand” on the day of the placement.

ANZ has told a court it had no obligation to disclose a $750M bailout by the underwriters of a $2.5B equity capital raising in 2015, in ASIC’s case alleging the bank breached its continuous disclosure obligations by failing to alert the market to the bailout.

A senior ANZ executive was “deeply concerned” by the size of the shortfall in its $2.5 billion 2015 equity capital raising, the court heard on the first day of trial in ASIC’s civil penalty case against the bank over alleged disclosure breaches.

Bayer told a jury that clinical trials from the 1990’s to 2014 showed its Essure birth control device was “safe and efficacious”, as the pharmaceutical giant faces trial in a class action by patients who claim they suffered debilitating injuries from the device.

Pharmaceutical giant Bayer cannot write off debilitating chronic pain and bleeding which patients allegedly experienced after being implanted with Essure contraceptives as “common women’s symptoms”, a court has heard in the first day of trial in a long-running class action.