Westpac has agreed to pay a whopping $1.3 billion civil penalty to resolve AUSTRAC enforcement action over the bank’s 23 million breaches of money laundering and counter-terrorism laws.
The Australian Olympic Committee has settled litigation brought against a local microbrewery for allegedly violating its intellectual property by featuring the AOC coat of arms on its products and packaging without permission.
A local court magistrate overseeing the ANZ criminal cartel case has denied a bid by prosecutors to be given twice the length of time typically allotted to parties for case conference discussions, saying the sooner the proceedings can be transferred to the Federal Court the better.
Mining giant BHP has been given the green light to bring allegations of fraud against competitor Cherwell Creek Coal in a long running dispute over mining rights.
Two National Australia Bank units are trying to shut down a Maurice Blackburn-led class action over alleged superannuation mismanagement, claiming that the proceeding was invalidly commenced in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has been hit with another class action for allegedly pushing insurance policies with excessive premiums onto customers.
Shine Lawyers is investigating two new class actions against Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac’s BT Funds Management over allegedly excessive insurance premiums, a week after filing a similar case against AMP’s life insurance arm.
Westpac anti-money laundering compliance troubles continue to worsen, with the bank reporting an additional 365,000 incomplete or inaccurate threshold transaction reports to AUSTRAC.
A senior officer from the ACCC has rejected claims that the regulator took legal advice from immunity applicant JPMorgan before launching its high profile criminal cartel case against ANZ, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.
A former high-ranking Deutsche Bank executive charged with involvement in an alleged cartel agreement relating to a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement claims he was dragged into the case becaused of the “incredibly slapdash” methods of the ACCC.