Regulators

Medibank has denied breaching privacy rules in response to the regulator’s case over a 2022 cyber attack, but has admitted sensitive data was hacked in part because its network lacked multi-factor authentication. 

Drug supplier Sigma Healthcare has offered an undertaking in a bid to allay the competition regulator’s concerns about its proposed merger with Chemist Warehouse. 

Olam Agri Holdings has offered to divest its Queensland cotton gin and a 20 per cent holding in a leading Australian cotton classing company to win approval for its takeover of Namoi Cotton.

In a first, EnergyAustralia has been ordered to pay $14 million for breaching the Electricity Retail Code by misleading customers about prices.

The ACCC will not oppose Lendlease’s plan to sell a portfolio of residential projects to Stockland for $1.3 billion after accepting Stockland’s plan to divest a project in Illawarra. 

Vanguard Investments has been ordered to pay a penalty of almost $13 million for misleading the public about its $1 billion “ethically conscious” hedge fund.

Macquarie Bank has been fined a record $4.995 million for failing to stop the placement of suspicious orders on the electricity futures market.

The director of collapsed investment firm Linchpin Capital has lost his challenge to a $150,000 penalty, with an appeals court dismissing his arguments as “carping criticism”.

The Fair Work Commission has dismissed a six-year-old unfair dismissal case against Gadens, describing the case as part of an apparent “spiteful campaign” against the firm. 

Major supermarkets Coles and Woolworths have been taken to court by the consumer regulator, accused of inflating prices for short periods in order to advertise more attractive discounts.