What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, lawyers have said in attacking a report to Parliament that recommends abolishing amendments adding a fault element to the continuous disclosure regime for ASIC cases but requiring shareholders to clear the higher bar in class actions.
The Morrison-era reforms that introduced a fault element to the continuous disclosure laws should be repealed for civil penalty proceedings launched by ASIC, but retained for class actions by shareholders, a report of an independent review of the changes has recommended.
A judge that tossed two shareholder class actions against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has found the bank did not have to alert investors to the possibility of AUSTRAC proceedings, saying investors did not expect to be apprised of the “toings and froings” of regulatory investigations.
The High Court has been asked to overturn a NSW Court of Appeal decision finding it had no power to exclude unregistered group members from a settlement, which conflicted with Federal Court precedent, hearing the divergence of the important issue “can only be resolved by the High Court”.
A judge has expressed concerns about the plaintiff’s proposed group costs order rate in a shareholder class action against fleet management company FleetPartners, saying the purpose of the GCO regime was to lower costs to group members.
The score in shareholder class actions taken to trial now stands at a dismal 0-5 after a judge tossed class actions against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia on Friday. But don’t expect funders to throw in the towel until the High Court or an intermediate appellate authority has its say, experts told Lawyerly.
Two class actions have failed to convince a judge that the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s money laundering compliance failure which led to a $700 million penalty was “law breaking on a grand scale” that should have been disclosed to the market, the latest shareholder case to flop after being taken to trial.
Omni Bridgeway will book a smaller-than-expected loss from its investment in failed shareholder class actions against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia that it spent close to $10 million on, having curbed its exposure by selling a stake in the group proceedings.
Slater & Gordon has won the court’s nod to be separately represented at an upcoming settlement approval hearing where it will seek a $12.8 million group costs order for running a shareholder class action against G8 Education.
Investment bank JP Morgan Securities has been fined $775,000 by the corporate cop after it failed to interrogate a number of unusual orders on wheat futures that should have raised red flags.