A groundbreaking class action ruling by the Federal Court on Thursday that found Myer misled shareholders and accepted the applicant’s market-based causation theory is the only judgment in an Australian securities class action since the first shareholder case was brought 20 years ago, and it might be the only one for years to come.
A judge has ruled that department store Myer engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct and breached its continuous disclosure obligations when it failed to correct its “inflated” 2015 net profit forecasts, but said shareholders may not have suffered any loss flowing from the breaches, in a monumental decision that also found investors do not always need to prove direct reliance on misrepresentations in claiming damages in class actions.
A judge’s decision refusing to approve a $42 million settlement in a shareholder class action against Murray Goulburn because of a “too high” funder’s commission has set the stage for a showdown over the power of courts to alter funding agreements, a battle potentially more consequential than the fight over common fund orders now before the High Court.
Ex-Tennis Australia director and current Dentons partner Steve Healy, who is facing action by the corporate regulator over the broadcast rights to the Australian Open, has lost a bid for access to six years of emails between two other former board members.
The judge who presided over a rare securities class action trial last year against department store Myer will deliver judgment in the case this month that could be the first ruling on causation in Australian shareholder class actions and has the potential to have a chilling effect on law firms bringing the cases.
A failed challenge by baby food maker Bellamy’s Australia to a decision rejecting its application to limit legal costs in two class actions was “not strong”, but was not so unreasonable as to put them on the hook for indemnity costs, the Full Federal Court has ruled.
ASIC and other government regulators bringing enforcement action in the docket of one Federal Court judge must abide by a strict new protocol to prevent a repeat of the corporate watchdog’s “wait and see” strategy in a case against ex-Murray Goulburn directors that came close, the judge said, to bringing the administration of justice into disrepute.
A judge has refused a bid by two former Murray Goulburn executives to throw out a disqualification case brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, despite admonishing the corporate regulator for its delay in bringing the case and establishing a protocol for regulators filing cases in his docket.
US prenatal genetic test maker Ariosa Diagnostics has won its bid to appeal a ruling that its Harmony test infringed a patent owned by rival Sequenom.
The judge overseeing multiple class actions against Volkswagen over its dieselgate emissions scandal has said he will āneed persuadingā before reallocating the settlement approval to a different judge, because āthatās something that happens in Victoriaā.