A contest of two competing shareholder class actions against Westpac over millions of alleged anti-money laundering breaches has ended with one law firm and its funder bowing out.
A date has been set in Domino’s bid to strike out parts of the statement of claim in a class action alleging franchisees underpaid thousands of workers across Australia for five years.
The second of two class actions brought against Westpac over alleged anti-money laundering breaches has been denied discovery of what the bank claims are commercially sensitive documents until the law firms behind the class actions work out how their competing cases will proceed.
Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram will call for a stay of a Federal Court competition lawsuit brought by an Australian social media startup as it seeks to arbitrate the matter under Californian law.
BHP has failed in a bid to shut down a class action over the Fundao dam failure pending criminal proceedings in Brazil, with a judge ruling the mining giant would not be prejudiced if the case proceeded for now.
Westpac has been hit with another class action over alleged anti-money laundering breaches, teeing up a high-stakes beauty parade over which firm will lead the class action against the bank.
Deloitte has lost its appeal of a ruling in a shareholder class action over the collapse of Hastie Group that compelled the production of audit files taken by a partner from the accounting giant’s litigation room, in a ruling that described the actions of the partner as “bordering on contempt” and slammed Deloitte for “cynically” exploiting the situation.
A ruling is expected Thursday in an appeal by the partnership of Deloitte over the production of audit files that were apparently stolen from the accounting giant’s litigation room, a high-stakes decision that will clarify the limits of a partnership’s right to claim privilege against self-incrimination.
Westpac is now facing at least eight class actions in various US courts seeking $200 million from the bank for allegedly failing to alert shareholders to violations of anti-money laundering laws.
A judge overseeing the first of what could be many shareholder class actions over Westpac’s anti-money laundering breaches — brought by class action specialists Phi Finney McDonald — has given other law firms a three-week deadline to notify the court if they plan to file competing proceedings.