Over-the-counter derivative issuers AGM Markets, OT Markets and Oxifin Tech have been ordered to pay a total of $75 million in penalties after a ruling that they engaged in unconscionable conduct causing losses of over $30 million to unsophisticated investors seeking what a judge called “financial heroin hits”.
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.
The director of the besieged Mayfair investment group will submit a new noteholder proposal to the court in an effort to stave off the winding up of M101 Nominees and salvage his multi-million dollar Dunk Island and Mission Beach investments.
Lawyer Alex Elliott, the son of the mastermind behind an alleged fraudulent scheme by certain members of the legal team in the Banksia class action, has resisted handing over evidence in the case against him, invoking the right to silence in the face of possible criminal charges.
The cost consultant joined as a defendant in the trial over alleged misconduct by the Banksia class action legal team has died, the second person implicated in the fee scandal to die this year.
Lawyer Alex Elliott was complicit in a plan by his late father to mislead the court and group members in the Banksia class action, to conceal conflicts of interest and to profit from the case at the expense of debenture holders, a judge has been told.
The Murray Goulburn class action run by Elliott Legal bears similarities to the Banksia class action, a case rife with scandal and offered up by opponents as proof of the problems with the class action regime. The leading lawyers were the same in both cases. In one they have abandoned any claim to their fees and have walked away from their careers. In the other they walked away with $5 million.
An appeals court has dismissed a second bid by lawyer Alex Elliott to have the judge overseeing the Banksia class action disqualified from hearing claims that he, like his late father, was party to an alleged fraudulent scheme in running the litigation.
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”.
The Morrison government has announced significant reforms to insolvency laws as part of its economic recovery plan that take inspiration from US chapter 11 laws, but Australia’s peak legal body has said the timeframe for the changes and lack of consultation were “very concerning”.