Baker McKenzie

A mid-trial fight has erupted in a class action over the collapse of steelmaker Arrium, with the company's auditor and directors saying the case had swerved, and the plaintiff accusing the respondents of "playing games".

Lawyers for LBJ Developments have told a judge that its joint venture partners on a development at the former Lilydale quarry breached their obligations by failing to honour a contractual right to tender for quarry filling works at the site.

KPMG has told a judge there is no evidence that Arrium's share price would have changed even if it had recorded a $2.8 billion impairment, urging the judge to reject the shareholder class action's "intuitive" case on loss. 

Former directors of steelmaker Arrium have rejected shareholder class action claims that the company's collapse was foreseeable, calling claims they had their heads in the sand “arrant nonsense”. 

KPMG failed to bring the necessary scepticism to the task of auditing failing steel manufacturer Arrium, instead leaving contradictory evidence unresolved and giving the company a clean bill of health, a shareholder class action has told the court.

A shareholder class action against KPMG and ex-Arrium directors says the company's accounts were infected by "chronic and systemic overoptimism", with the former operator of Whyalla Steelworks portraying as viable a business that was impaired up to $2.8 billion.

As proof of its popularity as a class action jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of Victoria will hear opening submissions in three class action trials on Monday, an unprecedented number in a single day for the court.

Testing lab ALS must hand over almost all of a McGrathNicol report into allegedly exaggerated coal testing results, after a judge found last year the company had waived privileged over parts of the report by referring to its findings in an ASX statement.

A developer can't expand its case against its partners on a residential development at the site of the Lilydale Quarry weeks out from trial, with a judge saying the new claims were brought too late and would unfairly prejudice the defendants. 

REST Nominees has lost an injunction bid barring the sale of the Dexus bloc of shares in Melbourne Airport's operator pending an appeal, after refusing to give an undertaking that it foot the entire damages bill if its challenge fails.