A judge overseeing the misconduct trial in the Banksia Securities class action has rejected a bid by a lawyer for the deceased cost consultant in the case to separately determine whether a cause of action survives his death.
The son of Banksia class action funder Mark Elliott, who has been accused of complicity in a fraudulent scheme to maximise the profits of the lawyers in the case, was young and inexperienced and didn’t know his father’s conduct was wrong, his barrister has told a court.
A routine practice by the funder behind the scandal-ridden Banksia class action of deleting emails, documented in a letter by his solicitors just days before his death, isn’t consistent with the electronic record maintained in another class action in which he was involved, a court overseeing a trial in the case has heard.
A judge has expressed skepticism at claims by accounting firm Pitcher Partners that the lead applicant of a now dropped class action over its auditing advice to Slater & Gordon should be hit with indemnity costs for discontinuing the case.
Johnson Winter & Slattery persisted with a shareholder class action over auditing advice given to Slater & Gordon despite concerns about the strength of the claims raised in late 2017, Pitcher Partners has told the Federal Court as it seeks indemnity costs for the now abandoned proceeding.
Dropping a class action against accounting firm Pitcher Partners over Slater & Gordon’s disastrous acquisition of UK professional services firm Quindell will leave group members no worse off than they were when the proceeding first commenced, the Federal Court has heard.
Software company LiveTiles will pay $8.445 million to settle litigation brought by Microsoft solutions provider nSynergy’s founder Keith Redenbach against his brother, LiveTiles CEO Karl Redenbach, alleging he diverted tens of millions of dollars in nSynergy’s assets, including LiveTiles.
Real estate investment giant Cromwell Property Group will not get the court’s help in pursuing a case of “unlawful association” against its largest shareholder, Singapore-based ARA Group, which has made a $518 million hostile takeover bid, and the family of Chinese billionaire Gordon Tang.
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Arnold Bloch Leibler seeking to use information from its legal work on Slater & Gordon’s $1.2 billion acquisition of UK firm Quindell to defend itself in a class action brought by the plaintiffs firm’s shareholders.
Lawyer Alex Elliott can’t refuse to hand over evidence in the Banksia class action on the grounds of privilege against self incrimination or exposure to penalty because he waived privilege when he produced the documents to lawyers for his late father’s funder, a court has been told.