A senior officer from the ACCC has rejected claims that the regulator took legal advice from immunity applicant JPMorgan before launching its high profile criminal cartel case against ANZ, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.
A former high-ranking Deutsche Bank executive charged with involvement in an alleged cartel agreement relating to a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement claims he was dragged into the case becaused of the “incredibly slapdash” methods of the ACCC.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has instituted court proceedings against a unit of French sporting goods giant Decathlon alleging it flouted product safety standards over a three-year period.
Online odd jobs platform Service Seeking has been fined $600,000 for falsely representing that reviews on its platform were written by customers when in fact they were written by the businesses themselves.
ANZ Banking Group has slammed a decision by the ACCC to escalate concerns that one of its key cartel witnesses was not being “full and frank”, claiming this was a way to put pressure on the witness and bring his evidence into line.
Federal police have charged 12 members of an alleged sophisticated criminal syndicate, including construction industry figure George Alex, which authorities say enlisted the help of financial industry experts and former bankers to pull off a $17 million fraud.
Commonwealth Bank’s wealth management unit Colonial First State has admitted misleading conduct in certain calls to superannuation members, but has otherwise denied claims by the corporate watchdog that it misled over 12,000 fund members during the transition to MySuper accounts.
ASIC has dropped its fight with Westpac over the bank’s financial assessment of home loan borrowers following political pressure, citing the “challenging economic circumstances”.
The ACCC’s investigatory techniques have come under fire during a hearing over an alleged criminal cartel agreement between ANZ and two investment banks, with a barrister for one of the banks suggesting investigators from the regulator deliberately did not take notes during hundreds of days of witness interviews to avoid disclosure.
ASIC has called for a $15 million penalty against National Australia Bank over its scandal-ridden ‘Introducer’ loan referral program, but a judge has questioned the “superficial” investigations in the case and remarked on the corporate regulator’s “pattern” of bringing enforcement action after remediation programs were well underway.