A judge has approved a $50 million settlement in a shareholder class action against failed training company Vocation and auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, but questioned whether the $10.9 million commission and $12.75 million legal bill could have been “materially lower” had the case been run by one funder and firm instead of two.
The auditor of stockbroker Halifax Investment Services, whose 2008 collapse left around $200 million in client funds trapped, has pleaded guilty to the first criminal charges brought over auditing services in Australia.
Consulting firm EY is facing legal action for allegedly making inaccurate and misleading statements ahead of the 2019 sale by Coca-Cola Amatil of its fruit processing business SPC.
Deloitte has agreed to settle a $3.8 million lawsuit brought by a partner that challenged the accounting firm’s mandatory retirement policy.
Investors who entrusted their retirement savings to deceased fraudster Melissa Caddick may launch a class action against the auditors that signed off on financial statements for the funds.
Criminal charges have been laid against the auditor of stockbroker Halifax Investment Services, whose 2008 collapse left around $200 million in client funds trapped, in the first criminal charges brought over auditing services in Australia.
Grant Thornton has won approval to a bring a cross-claim against Forge Group, just three months ahead of trial in the collapsed engineering company’s case against the accounting firm and ten former directors for their alleged negligence in relation to its “uneconomic” purchase of CTEC in 2012.
Ernst & Young has delayed in filing its evidence in a lawsuit by Sydney-based investment firm London City Equities over its auditing of collapsed soda ash maker Penrice after hiring Holding Redlich to replace Allens just a few months before a mediation deadline.
Chinese lender Aoyin wants to join Baker McKenzie to its claims against PwC over a failed bid to launch the first Chinese bank incorporated in Australia, after advice documents from the law firm were uncovered in a last-minute privilege fight.
A director of Gold Coast accounting firm Oculus has lost his bid to represent the company in a class action by investors in failed music streaming platform Guvera, with a judge unconvinced the company lacked the means to fund the litigation and finding the director was not suitable to represent the company.