A judge has sent insolvency firm Ferrier Hodgson back to the drawing board to redraft its pleadings against the former directors and auditors of collapsed construction company Forge Group, warning that the overlapping actions were at risk of becoming an “unrideable bull”.
Law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan will push forward with an investor class action against failed engineering company RCR Tomlinson on its own, with two firms driving competing actions agreeing to step down after a judge forcibly consolidated all three proceedings.
The applicants in the Iluka Resources shareholder class action have less than a week to lock-in a $1.25 million security for costs, after the judge overseeing the case asked if he was allowed to dismiss proceedings himself following six months of being “very patient” about ongoing funding dramas.
A judge has ordered ASIC and defence shipbuilder Austal to try to narrow the scope of documents at the centre of the regulator’s case challenging the company’s claims of legal professional privilege.
Pitcher Partners has been ordered to hand over information about its professional indemnity insurance in two shareholder class actions over its role as Slater & Gordon’s auditor.
ASIC has abandoned its market manipulation case against National Australia Bank contractor Whitebox Trading, just over a month after the financial regulator decided to appeal the Federal Court’s primary decision to throw out their case.
The plaintiffs in an investor class action brought against the insurers of Dick Smith have lost an early bid to determine the viability of their claim, amid concerns that the total value of five separate cases against the failed retailer will exhaust the $300 million limit of two insurance policies.
The parties in two shareholder class actions brought against online fashion retailer Surfstitch will make one “last, final attempt” to resolve the proceedings in mediation after a proposed settlement was thwarted by a judge last year, a court heard Friday.
The plaintiffs in three competing RCR Tomlinson shareholder class actions have been told to “get their act together” by the judge who forcibly consolidated their proceedings, after the parties revealed they were as yet unable to agree on joint funding terms.
Engineering company UGL has reached an in-principle settlement in a class action alleging it kept shareholders in the dark about problems with a $900 million contract for a power plant for the Ichthys LNG project in the Northern Territory.