Construction

Infrastructure services company Downer EDI has been hit with a second shareholder class action following revelations of accounting irregularities that sent its share price tumbling.

Two ex-directors of Chinese construction and engineering firm BCEG who were found to have defrauded the company have succeeded in clawing back a portion of their costs of a partially successful appeal which reduced the amount owing to their former employee by around $12.5 million.

A class action over the collapse of Walton Construction has argued the National Australia Bank cannot shield communications with Norton Rose Fulbright and Deloitte because they were made to further a fraud or otherwise had an illegal or improper purpose.

A judge has found that lead plaintiffs in a class action by commercial fishing operations against Gladstone Ports can bring new claims out of time, saying it would be “grossly inconsistent” if group members had broader limitation relief than representative parties.

The ACCC has given its blessing to Sika’s planned acquisition of Germany-based MBCC Group, subject to the divestiture of MBCC’s Australian and New Zealand business.

A judge won’t stay a reference process which US company Fluor claims is infected with bias, in a “monumental” dispute with energy giant Santos that has already generated a $57.5 million legal bill for the engineering firm.

The builder of an allegedly defective Haymarket apartment building has lost an appeal of a decision which found that separate breaches of statutory building warranties do not create individual causes of action.

Award-wining architecture firm Ashton Raggatt McDougall and its former boss have agreed to pay a combined $975,000 in penalties for attempting to rig bids on a $250 million building project at Charles Darwin University.

BlueScope Steel spent $27 million defending the ACCC’s claims that it engaged in serious cartel conduct in relation to the supply of flat steel products in Australia, and its apologies came too late to warrant a penalty discount, a court has heard.

A leading construction and commercial law silk in Sydney has been subject to a reprimand by the NSW legal services commissioner for alleged sexual harassment and workplace bullying.