The Federal Court has ordered the winding up of Forum Finance, which has been accused by Westpac and French investment bank Societe Generale of a $263 million fraud, as details of the company’s jetsetting director’s planned return to Australia from Europe remain murky.
Global legal giant Dentons has snagged a Herbert Smith Freehills competition partner with almost 30 years experience at the big six firm for its Sydney office.
Insurance giant QBE Insurance Australia has launched a COVID-19 business interruption test case in the Federal Court, following a landmark loss for insurers in the NSW Court of Appeal that could cost them $10 billion.
Dentons has snagged one partner and four lawyers from a Perth law firm to join its recovery and restructuring team, as part of its ambitious 2021 growth strategy.
Food dip producer Obela Fresh Dips & Spreads has won a $3 million judgment against a former director who defrauded the company of millions of dollars, lied about his wife’s suicide and fled the country.
Payouts in class actions in 2020 largely kept pace with the previous year despite the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, with companies and other defendants paying more than $696 million to settle class actions last year.
Financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC will not take legal action against Afterpay over its compliance with anti-money laundering laws, following an external auditor’s report that found the buy now, pay later provider had received “incorrect” legal advice from several top-tier law firms about its compliance program.
In an “ode to a dying corporation” a Western Australia judge known for his droll judgments has waxed poetic in approving the end of a quarter century of litigation over the collapse of Alan Bond’s Bell Group of companies, penning what he described in mock solemnity as “more of a requiem than a judgment”.
Thomson Geer has raided DLA Piper and Macpherson Kelley and picked up some of Australia’s top lawyers, one month after raiding Dentons’ Brisbane office, as it aims to become one of the country’s major law firms.
National law firm Thomson Geer has effectively gutted the Brisbane office of global firm Dentons’, luring five key partners and their teams to beef up its real estate, banking and restructuring practices.