A funder that’s helping foot the bill in a class action against Arrium’s former directors and KPMG may withdraw support if the law firm that’s running it is not granted an order awarding it 40 per cent of any award or settlement.
Accounting giant KPMG is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a former long-serving employee over “unnecessarily aggressive, belittling and disproportionate” emails allegedly attacking his professional integrity.
Shareholders in a class action against failed steel giant Arrium and KPMG are seeking an unredacted version of an audit file by KPMG to probe the accounting giant’s handling of the steel producer’s financial statements before its collapse in April 2016.
KPMG has been hit with a lawsuit by a principal director who claims he was told to “change and adjust” to “belittling and disproportionate attacks” by a partner on the debt advisory team.
The Victorian Supreme Court will push ahead with a hearing for a group costs order in a class action by Arrium shareholders despite requests by the applicants that it be put off until after judgment is issued on the second-ever group costs order request.
It has been described as the darkest chapter in Victoria’s legal history, an exemplar of all that is terrible with class actions in Australia. A case of greedy lawyers who found their golden egg in a group of retirees who had lost their life savings, never thinking the chickens might come home to roost. Until now.
Two shareholders of failed Arrium Group have secured leave from the High Court to challenge a ruling that nixed their planned examination of a former director to bolster a class action over the collapse of the steel producer.
KPMG Law has snagged a former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner and NewLaw expert to lead its recently formed legal operations transformation services team, which the firm says has already delivered more than US$200 million in savings to in-house legal teams.
A judge has lashed out at the legal team behind a class action against S&P over allegedly misleading credit ratings for filing hearsay evidence in support of an application to serve the ratings giant overseas, saying that “nobody who is a first year law student” would say the evidence was admissible.
Deloitte chairman Tom Imbresi has defended a move by a firm partner to make off with the audit file of collapsed construction company Hastie after a court ordered it be produced to the applicant in a class action against the accounting giant.