A judge has expressed skepticism at claims by accounting firm Pitcher Partners that the lead applicant of a now dropped class action over its auditing advice to Slater & Gordon should be hit with indemnity costs for discontinuing the case.
Johnson Winter & Slattery persisted with a shareholder class action over auditing advice given to Slater & Gordon despite concerns about the strength of the claims raised in late 2017, Pitcher Partners has told the Federal Court as it seeks indemnity costs for the now abandoned proceeding.
Dropping a class action against accounting firm Pitcher Partners over Slater & Gordon’s disastrous acquisition of UK professional services firm Quindell will leave group members no worse off than they were when the proceeding first commenced, the Federal Court has heard.
Professional services firm EY UK has been added as a respondent in a shareholder class action against Pitcher Partners over advice given to law firm Slater and Gordon in its disastrous $1.3 billion acquisition of the UK-based Quindell in 2015, almost two years after the class action was filed.
An appeals court has dealt with complex jurisdiction and limitations issues in transferring one of three class actions against ride sharing giant Uber to another court, with one of the judges saying legislative reforms were needed to deal with the issues.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission will not take action against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia or any of its directors of officers in relation to AUSTRAC proceedings the bank agreed to settle for $700 million in 2018.
Construction giant Boral must now contend with three class actions by shareholders alleging it failed to disclose financial problems with its US windows business, but the cases will stay on ice pending a High Court challenge.
The law firm behind a long-running class action against Pitcher Partners over its auditing of Slater and Gordon is seeking court approval to drop the case, leaving the funder that bankrolled the proceeding to defend an application for indemnity costs.
Westpac has denied claims in a shareholder class action filed in the wake of AUSTRAC proceedings alleging 23 million breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance laws, saying the information the class action says it should have disclosed to shareholders “did not exist”.
A judge has pushed off a heated contest between law firms vying to lead a shareholder class action against construction giant Boral for what could be a year as a landmark High Court challenge plays out.