A judge has ordered 17 companies connected to Mayfair’s “failed” IPO Wealth Fund to be wound up after finding the fund’s director put investor money at risk through “highly speculative” investments to make a windfall for himself.
Companies associated with Mayfair’s IPO Wealth Fund should be wound up because they contained assets “artificially inflated” in value and ran what was effectively a Ponzi scheme, the Victoria Supreme Court has heard.
The director of besieged investment group Mayfair 101 has called for an investigation into the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, calling a winding up proceeding brought by the financial watchdog “a form of malicious prosecution” based on a “flawed fundamental misunderstanding” and supported by an erroneous report from auditor Deloitte.
Alex Elliott, the son of former Banksia Securities class action lawyer Mark Elliott, must hand over documents revealing his financial interests in his father’s litigation funding company and law firm, after the judge overseeing professional misconduct claims against lawyers in the class action rejected his claims that the discovery was a fishing expedition.
Ernst & Young is facing a claim for $12 million damages in a lawsuit over its auditing of collapsed soda ash maker Penrice.
Recent changes in the Australian regulation of third-party funders will have a dramatic effect on the funding of certain disputes. Although these changes were accompanied by Government and industry commentary that they would not affect litigation funding for insolvency-related claims, this may not be the case for all insolvency funding arrangements, writes Lina Kolomoitseva of funder Litigation Capital Management.
The judge overseeing professional misconduct claims against lawyers in the Banksia class action has denied Alex Elliott’s request to stay the case against him while he takes his recusal application to the Court of Appeal, branding the stay ‘an indulgence’.
The trial scheduled for this month in ASIC’s case against the Mayfair 101 group has been pushed off as the regulator adds claims that the troubled investment firm misled investors and director James Mawhinney briefs lawyers to represent his companies.
Mayfair director James Mawhinney has been blocked from talking to investors ahead of a hearing on an application to wind up the IPO Wealth fund, after a judge raised concerns about investors being “misled and coerced” by the investment hotshot.
Virgin Australia has been ordered to return four jet engines to the United States, after a court found the embattled airline and its administrators failed to properly hand over the engines and other equipment to their owners.