The Takeovers Panel has found that while a $2.5 million break fee included in a $470 million takeover offer lobbed during a bidding war for Western Australia power supplier Pacific Energy was not a “common market approach”, it was not anti-competitive or coercive.
Litigation funder Augusta Ventures has brought its promised appeal of a groundbreaking ruling that put it on the hook for paying security for costs in an employment class action over the classification of casual mine workers.
Two special purpose liquidators appointed to collapsed engineering and construction company Forge Group are investigating a potential lawsuit against KPMG, which audited the doomed business prior to its $800 million collapse in 2014.
Global chemicals giant SNF has dropped its case against rival BASF over a lucrative mining patent, the last of numerous Federal Court disputes between the companies.
A group of unsecured creditors of ‘Diamond Joe’ Gutnik’s mining firm Merlin Diamonds has launched a NSW Supreme Court bid to preserve their rights over security interests in the company as the clock ticks down to its impending liquidation.
Technology firm Globaltech Corporation has filed Federal Court proceedings against rival Reflex Instruments for selling two mining survey devices to drilling company Boart Longyear that allegedly infringe its patent.
A unit of staffing company Programmed has become the latest target of a litigation blitz over casual workers, with the company facing a $45 million class action for allegedly failing to pay workers accrued annual leave and other entitlements.
The Federal Government is considering reforms targeting litigation funders in response to what it has called a greater number of “increasingly politicised” class actions against companies in the mining and resources industry.
The Federal Court has ruled against mining services firm Thiess in a class action brought by construction workers seeking unpaid wages for time spent on the bus travelling home from work on the project site for a Pilbara-based liquefied natural gas processing plant owned by Woodside Energy.
Bail conditions have been set for a former BlueScope Steel executive charged with obstructing an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission criminal cartel probe into the steel company, the first criminal charges ever brought against an individual in relation to an ACCC investigation.