The Australian Securities and Investments Commission presented its misleading and deceptive conduct case against companies in the Mayfair Group in an undefended trial on Monday, while the beleaguered investment group’s director watched the online proceedings as a muted observer.
Proceedings launched by ASIC in December accusing the Commonwealth Bank of Australia of saddling consumers with $2.9 million in inflated interest rates on their business overdraft accounts on more than 12,000 occasions will move swiftly to a penalties hearing.
Westpac-backed venture capital firm Reinventure Group has settled a lawsuit brought by a former partner claiming she was entitled to a cut of a $100 million valuation increase in 11 startups the firm invested in.
London is in a “complete state of chaos” and no amount of pressing by law firm Moray & Agnew has produced an answer from underwriters about the extent of his insurance coverage, former Linchpin Capital Group CEO Peter Daly has said in a three-paragraph defence to disqualification proceedings by the corporate regulator.
Macquarie Bank is challenging a ruling that it pay $330,000 in pecuniary penalties after it was found to have underpaid a group of former financial advisers because of a “defective and deficient” payment system.
Investment house Washington H. Soul Pattinson is fighting a ruling that it owes its former finance director over $1.1 million in damages after the ASX 100-listed firm terminated the executive without notice and failed to pay out entitlements.
Westpac has hit back at a class action accusing it of colluding with car dealers on a “shonky” car loan scheme that allowed them to hike up interest rates to earn higher commissions, saying consumers could have shopped around for a better deal.
A judge has ordered ASIC to enter mediation before heading into a “very expensive” trial with an IOOF subsidiary accused of giving shonky advice, over objections from the regulator that mediation would be “completely futile”.
IOOF subsidiary Australian Executor Trustees failed to drag law firm Sparke Helmore into a case after it was hit with a $76.6 million judgment over breaches of duty in the sale of a 42,000 hectare timber plantation by collapsed forestry giant Gunns Group.
In Wigmans v AMP the High Court will shortly deliver judgment on the vexed issue of class actions that compete to represent substantially the same class or group. Dr Michael Duffy of Monash University previews the decision.