IP Australia has rejected an Italian cheese lobby’s bid to block an American cheese maker from using a trade mark containing the word ‘asiago’, saying there was “very little evidence” Australians were aware of the cheese at all.
A judge has signed off on an agreed-to $5 million penalty against Noumi in ASIC proceedings for violating its continuous disclosure obligations and found the food company’s non-disclosures caused it shares to trade at an inflated price.
Now-defunct sushi chain Sushi Bay has been slapped with penalties totalling more than $15 million, with a court calling its long history of staff underpayments “calculated” and “audacious”.
A judge has ordered Mercer Superannuation to pay $11.3 million for “reckless, if not deliberate” representations about so-called sustainable investment options that included investment in oil and gas companies, including BHP and Origin Energy.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has approved France-based Louis Dreyfus’ proposed acquisition of ASX-traded cotton gin operator Namoi Cotton, after accepting an undertaking that allayed its competition concerns.
Sydney-based wealth guru Dominique Grubisa has been banned from managing corporations for 18 months after an ASIC investigation found two companies she managed owed more than $300,000 to creditors.
The Queensland Court of Appeal has knocked back a challenge by jailed investment guru Dr Roger Munro to his conviction on three counts of fraud, which landed him a four-and-a-half month prison sentence.
Bondi wellness research company Doll House has copped a $197,000 penalty for terminating three disabled employees and re-engaging them as independent contractors in a ‘sham’ contracting arrangement.
Experts say the chaos of last month’s CrowdStrike outage is likely to spark a flurry of litigation both overseas and at home, including class actions, but lawyers bringing the claims will face significant hurdles.
Hong Kong-based NGS Crypto Group and its director have lost their bid to undo receivership and freezing orders made amid concerns about dissipation of assets as ASIC investigates whether hundreds of Australians who sank $21.1 million into the crypto firm were misled about the safety of their investments.