PricewaterhouseCoopers is looking to shut down a class action by irate bondholders of collapsed asset finance lender Axsesstoday Limited over alleged misrepresentations in a $50 million bond offer.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has raised preliminary competition concerns about accounting software provider MYOB’s proposal to swallow up cloud practice management software provider GreatSoft, saying the South Africa-based company has the potential to become a strong competitor to MYOB as more accounting firms migrate to the cloud.
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.
Bondholders of Axsesstoday are seeking to expand their claims in a class action against the collapsed asset finance lender and its accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers, alleging PwC kept investors in the dark about a spike in the company’s arrears ratio prior to issuing a $50 million bond prospectus.
Assurances that PwC can be a defendant in a privilege fight with the ATO while representing three other defendants in the proceedings and avoid a conflict of interest has failed to allay concerns raised by a Federal Court judge, who said the situation created “at least an appearance of tension”.
Shareholders of collapsed vocational training company Vocation are poised to get about half of a $50 million settlement reached last month in a complex, long-running class action alleging the company failed to make adequate disclosures about its contracts with the Victorian Department of Education.
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.
PricewaterhouseCoopers won’t get a chance to seek summary dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a former company director who claims her notice of termination through DocuSign was invalid and that she was denied entitlements, with a judge saying the former employee had a claim and that the parties needed to “just get on with it”.