Regulators

HSBC has agreed to pay a $35 million penalty in ASIC proceedings after it admitted to serious failures in protecting customers from scams, but a judge is questioning whether the penalty is high enough. 

A judge has ordered the former CEO and chief legal officer of Star to pay a combined $1.1 million in penalties for failing to act on "obvious" money laundering risks, but said the fines would have been higher had ASIC not struck a "generous" settlement with other directors.

Swiss drug maker Novartis has lost its bid to have Pharmacor's Valtresto trade mark removed for non use, with an IP Australia delegate finding that an injunction in a fight over the patent for Novartis' heart drug Entresto was an obstacle to using the mark. 

The Law Council says asserting legal professional privilege is not "inherently scandalous", ahead of a parliamentary hearing on KPMG's sharing ofclient information, at which law firms Allens and Ashurst are expected to stay mum.

A former owner of the Ubertas property development group is suing Deloitte Private and Pitcher Partners, alleging they gave her negligent advice that led to an audit and a $12 million tax bill.

The privacy watchdog has ordered credit provider American Express to implement more stringent security controls and pay compensation to a customer whose information was improperly accessed by an AMEX worker they had a relationship with.

The consumer watchdog has taken fast food burger chain Grill’d to court for allegedly misleading consumers by overstating how much money would go towards planting trees as part of its Tree Day Tuesday promotion.

Kicking off its case against former Noumi CEO Rory Macleod, ASIC has told the court that Macleod was clearly aware of the "dramatic" difference between actual available stock and what was reported to the market in 2019 and 2020.

A lawyer for ASIC has told a judge that $300 million in Shield Master Fund investments intended for property developments appear to have been diverted for other purposes.

An executive director at ASIC has said the High Court has “opened the door” for regulators to rely on a new way to prove corporate wrongdoing that does not require establishing that individuals within a company had a wrongful intent or relevant knowledge.