The CDPP’s decision to drop all criminal cartel charges against two banks and four individuals in a “test case” over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement shows the ACCC “lacks expertise and objectivity” on the financial markets and should leave them to ASIC to regulate, according to one of the former accused.
From a lengthy committal hearing challenging the ACCC’s investigatory techniques to repeated attacks on the prosecution’s indictment, an indefatigable team of barristers and lawyers across eight law firms helped bring an end to the four-year long pursuit of criminal cartel charges against three banks and six individuals over a $2.8 billion ANZ share placement.
In a stunning reversal, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecution has dropped all criminal cartel charges against two investment banks and four individuals in relation to a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement, four years after the charges were brought following an allegedly questionable investigation by the ACCC.
Bristol-Myers Squibb has agreed to open up its subsidised treatment program for stage IV melanoma patients to individuals who have been treated with drugs made by its competitors to settle a misuse of market power lawsuit brought by rival Merck Sharpe & Dohme.
IP Australia has quashed an extension for a patent covering a Bayer oral contraceptive, saying the extension should have been calculated based on a drug that was included on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods at an earlier date.
The parties in a class action accusing a Commonwealth Bank of Australia unit of breaching its superannuation trustee duties want the matter to be heard in person and are willing to foot the bill for the judge to travel to Sydney to make it happen.
One of Australia’s largest law firms has taken its insurer to court for failing to cover part of a $3.7 million settlement of a claim stemming from the sale of apartments at a $105 million South Yarra complex developed by millionaire Harry Stamoulis.
Australian Mercedes-Benz dealers behind a $650 million lawsuit over the car maker’s decision to move to a fixed-price agency model allege the car maker engaged Deloitte as a consultant so it could “spin” its real reasons for making the change.
Shareholders in a class action against failed steel giant Arrium and KPMG have lost their bid for KPMG’s complete audit file for Arrium to probe the Big Four accounting firm’s handling of the steel producer’s financial statements before its collapse in April 2016.
Forum Finance director Vince Tesoriero has raised concerns about the validity of the sale of a $4 million home in Sydney inner-West suburb Rozelle where company founder Bill Papas and his girlfriend lived, but a judge has indicated any attempt to block the sale would be “hopeless”.