BlueScope Steel general manager Jason Ellis wanted no record kept of a meeting with four of the company’s competing steel distributors and warned his national sales manager to keep the talks under wraps, a court hearing the ACCC’s price-fixing case was told on Thursday.
BlueScope has labelled “delusional” an argument by the competition regulator that alleged correspondence from a distributor about the steel company’s suggested higher prices was evidence of price-fixing.
Steel maker Bluescope’s claim that it didn’t engage in cartel conduct because it only encouraged distributors to set a price for its products would “eviscerate” cartel laws, the ACCC has told a court.
Criminal cartel charges against the CFMEU and its ACT branch secretary have been dropped amid concerns about witnesses’ ability to recall the events at the centre of the case, two months after witness credibility concerns led to a stinging defeat for the ACCC in the Country Care criminal cartel trial.
A litigation funder is suing a Sydney property developer over a $14.8 million debt stemming from a cause of action it acquired from the liquidators of the collapsed project manager behind the firm’s real estate projects.
The NSW Government is facing a class action alleging it fraudulently acquired land for the construction of the WestConnex tunnel and caused loss and damage to 3,000 land holders along the route.
US law firm White & Case has bolstered its presence in the Asia-Pacific region with the appointment of international arbitration lawyer Lee Carroll as a partner in Melbourne.
Queensland crane company NQCranes wants to strike out the bulk of the ACCC’s amended case alleging a conspiracy with a multinational rival to divide the Brisbane and Newcastle markets, saying there was no evidence of the regulator’s new allegations of a second cartel agreement.
The number of lawyers involved in a class action against 3A Composites over allegedly combustible cladding is set to balloon, with the German cladding manufacturer lobbing cross-claims against nine different parties.
A judge has denied a law firm’s bid to stay a rival’s closed shareholder class action against construction giant Boral but warned courts must be alive to the potential for conflicts where lawyers stand to reap “very significant financial awards” from class action proceedings.