Blue Sky Alternative Investments has reached a confidential settlement of its case against three former directors and two investment firms over an alleged raid on the fund manager’s confidential database.
Fitch Ratings has agreed to settle the last of the investor class actions in Australia flowing from the global financial crisis, a court heard Friday.
The corporate watchdog has proposed a complete ban on unsolicited telephone sales of life insurance and consumer credit insurance, as an urgent placeholder ahead of wider reforms recommended after last year’s banking royal commission.
Veritas Advisory liquidator David Iannuzzi has admitted to “quite significant deficiencies” in his conduct as a liquidator and agreed to a 10-year ban from serving as an insolvency practitioner.
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority will be given a raft of new disqualification powers over inappropriate directors and senior executives, after a report criticised the financial regulator’s preference to engage with regulated entities “behind the scenes”.
Lawyers for IOOF chief financial officer David Coulter have dismissed APRA’s allegations that he breached his superannuation duties as commercially “naïve”, “absolutely desperate” and a “most egregious example” of impulsive regulatory enforcement action.
The former directors of troubled fund manager IOOF have slammed APRA for bringing a “truly hopeless” disqualification case against them, telling a court the prudential regulator’s “Stalinist” approach was deterring “good people and good companies” from participating in the superannuation industry.
A judge has refused to approve Piper Alderman’s $3.5 million in legal fees charged for running a class action against KPMG, appointing Grant Thornton as contradictor and giving the auditor the ability to seek assistance from the court for any future disputes about the controversial bill.
The corporate watchdog has warned “robust” enforcement action is on the cards for banks and lenders, after a review found consumer credit insurance policies to be “extremely poor value for money”, paying out as little as 11 cents per dollar spent in premiums on average.
Rival law firms Maurice Blackburn and Phi Finney McDonald will be allowed to work together without consolidating their separate shareholder class actions against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, after a judge ruled that the bank had overstated the potential for extra costs and delays.