A $50 million settlement has been reached in a long-running shareholder class action against defunct vocational training company Vocation that also spawned multiple cross-claims against the failed company’s auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, law firm Johnson Winter & Slattery and individual directors.
A shareholder class action against Vocation that has spanned five years and spawned multiple cross claims against the failed training company’s auditor, law firm and individual directors, has reached an in-principle settlement.
Lawyers for former Vocation CEO Mark Hutchinson say the corporate regulator is “plucking numbers out of the air” in its bid to secure disqualifications of up to eight years against the former executives who breached their directors’ duties in relation to the collapsed education provider.
In a win for the corporate watchdog, a court has found collapsed education provider Vocation engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and breached its continuous disclosure obligations by failing to inform shareholders of problems with a large government contract.