Lawyers leading a class action against the Commonwealth Bank over its alleged money laundering compliance failures are getting their ducks in a row in the event the Full Court rules the court has the power to shut out unregistered group members from a class action.
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.
A class action against failed Fairview Architectural over alleged combustible cladding hangs in the balance as a court sets the stage for a fight with insurer Vero over a $190 million policy.
Class action settlement totals skyrocketed to over $900 million last year, and one law firm negotiated the lion’s share, with $672 million in settlements under its belt.
More than 18 months after a split emerged among the courts, the Full Federal Court will weigh in on whether judges have power to shut out unregistered group members from a class action. But given the breadth of the question for the appeals court, the issue is unlikely to be resolved there.
The Full Court is set to examine whether the Federal Court has the power to make class closure orders prior to mediation, weighing on one of the biggest unanswered questions vexing the class action regime.
Former Slater & Gordon managing director Andrew Grech has told the Federal Court he regretted his “catastrophic error” in approving the $1.2 billion acquisition of Quindell’s professional services division, which resulted in massive losses for the plaintiffs law firm.
Law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler will part with $28 million in its settlement with Slater & Gordon shareholders over advice ahead of the plaintiffs firm’s disastrous $1.2 billion Quindell acquisition.
A former partner at accounting firm Pitcher Partners has told a court that he had issues working with Ernst & Young on an audit of law firm Slater & Gordon, calling the Big 4 firm “uncooperative”.
A former partner at accounting firm Pitcher Partners has testified during a shareholder class action trial that he should have questioned statements about the viability of Slater & Gordon’s $1.2 billion Quindell acquisition, but ran out of time because its audit of the firm went “off the rails”.