A judge on Tuesday consolidated two shareholder class actions against life sciences company Sirtex Medical and appointed Maurice Blackburn as lead lawyers for the joint proceedings.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has broadened its case against Rio Tinto and two former executives and is seeking extra penalties.
Quinn Emanuel has been forced to bow out as class action counsel in a case against Bank of Queensland after litigation funder Vannin Capital called for the law firm’s $4 million fee to be challenged.
AMP’s chairwoman Catherine Brennar has resigned and the firm’s general counsel has left, as the company faces possible criminal charges for misleading the corporate regulator over its decade-long practice of charging undue fees to clients.
AMP could be hit with criminal charges after counsel assisting the Royal Commissioner said Friday evidence before the commission had shown the wealth management firm may have broken the law when it charged fees for no service, lied about the practice to ASIC, and presented a heavily-edited Clayton Utz report to the corporate regulator as independent.
The former directors of defunct financial advisory firm Storm Financial have filed an appeal after the Federal Court slapped them each with a $70,000 fine and banned them from managing corporations for seven years.
Clayton Utz’s public statements referencing its terms of engagement with AMP in drafting an independent report are irrelevant if it knew the document was destined for the corporate regulator, legal experts say, and transcripts from the Royal Commission suggest the law firm did know.
Mining company Iluka Resources has been hit with a shareholder class action alleging it breached its continuous disclosure obligations regarding its zircon sales.
The judge presiding over jostling shareholder class actions against logistics software company GetSwift suggested on Tuesday a “bill of peace” to join the actions, but lawyers leading the competing cases warned of the “economic hazard” of a merger.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has lost its appeal in a case against a former Australian Wheat Board senior executive over an alleged kickback scam in relation to the United Nation’s Oil-for-Food programme.