Five investment banks facing a class action for their alleged rigging of foreign exchange rates have slammed the “unclear” and “incredibly vague” case, saying it contains “literally trillions” of possible variations of the cartel agreement allegedly entered into.
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”.
The Chief Justice of the Federal Court says a system is needed to ensure parties don’t interrupt one another during virtual hearings, and noted the increase in online hearings brought on by the coronavirus may also free judges up to hear cases outside their registries.
Two Westpac units have defended their choice to charge higher superannuation fees, saying in their responses to a Slater and Gordon class action that customers received numerous positive benefits in exchange for the charges.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is seeking evidence from US proceedings in its case against Rio Tinto alleging the mining giant misled shareholders about a Mozambique mining company purchased for US$4.2 billion.
A judge has ordered a group of banks facing a competition class action over alleged foreign exchange rate-rigging to hand over documents they produced as part of settlement agreements in class actions in the US and Canada.
The approval of a settlement between the liquidators of failed fund manager Equititrust and auditor KPMG has been postponed to allow time to notify creditors and unitholders that they won’t see a cent, an outcome the judge called “a long way from litigation in any traditional sense”.
A judge overseeing a trial in a class action over the Montarra oil spill has ruled it necessary for Indonesian seaweed farmers to use the word “oil” in their evidence, after oil company PTTEP tried to argue they were not qualified to identify the substance.
Oil company PTTEP has objected to Indonesian seaweed farmers using the word “oil” in their evidence in the Montarra oil spill class action, arguing they are not qualified to identify oil.
Acciona Infrastructure and Transport for NSW are currently in settlement talks over a $1.2 billion dispute around the NSW government’s ongoing light rail project in Sydney.