The former chief financial officer of Murray Goulburn has asked a judge to relieve him from any disqualification order sought by the corporate watchdog in its case over his alleged role in the milk supplier’s continuous disclosure breaches, saying he is already the subject of orders that ban him from the dairy industry.
An average of 23 class actions have been filed every year in Australia since the class action regime was introduced in 1992, a number that belies recent claims of an explosion in litigation, a new report by a leading class action expert says.
Certain claims in a shareholder class action against insolvent training company Vocation and auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers have been dropped, as the long-running case awaits a new trial date pending the outcome of a separate Full Court appeal.
A NSW Supreme Court judge has raised concerns about a dispute over fees owed to two law firms and a funder in relation to four shareholder actions brought against the liquidators of HIH Insurance.
Three former Vocation executives — including former federal Treasurer John Dawkins — have been hit with disaqualification orders and fines totalling $125,000 after a court found they breached their directors’ duties ahead of the collapse of the education provider.
An investment fund named after a 17th-century pirate has hit the National Stock Exchange with a $6.3 million lawsuit over a suspension decision it calls “capricious” and a violation of the NSX’s terms.
Lawfinance, formerly known as Just Kapital, has won summary dismissal of a lawsuit initiated by its founder seeking a piece of the funder’s $5 million cut of the $16.85 million Wickham securities class action settlement.
UGL shareholders that signed up to a class action against the engineering company over disclosures related to its Ichthys power plant contract will get less than half of an $18 million settlement, even after the litigation funder takes a steep cut to its 30 per cent commission and the plaintiff’s firm caps its fees.
The funder backing a shareholder class action against Woolworths wants a 35 percent slice of any settlement or judgment in the $100 million case, according to its agreement with the applicants.
A groundbreaking class action ruling by the Federal Court on Thursday that found Myer misled shareholders and accepted the applicant’s market-based causation theory is the only judgment in an Australian securities class action since the first shareholder case was brought 20 years ago, and it might be the only one for years to come.