Companies

A settlement has been reached in a class action against KPMG alleging it providing a misleading expert report to copper miner Discovery Metals that was used to reject a $830 million hostile takeover bid.

ANZ has reached a settlement in long-running class action proceedings alleging it hit customers with illegal fees, but the $1.5 million payout falls far short of the many millions IMF Bentham spent in funding the matter.

A judge has denied law firm Piper Alderman's request to replace an uncooperative expert witness in a class action against KPMG over a failed takeover offer, three weeks before the matter goes to trial.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has called for the big accounting firms to focus on "culture and talent" after a new report found one in five audits had no reasonable basis for clearing company financial reports of material misstatements.

JP Morgan, the reported whistleblower behind a criminal cartel case against ANZ, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup over a $2.5 billion share placement, has won its bid to keep documents from a related ASIC probe confidential.

Google and Facebook should be regulated given the potential they have to wield their monopoly powers in ways that would harm consumers, the ACCC said in its highly anticipated preliminary report into the digital platforms.

ANZ treasurer Rick Moscati was at the centre of a flurry of phone calls and meetings with underwriters and other bank executives on the day the underwriters agreed to pick up a $791 million shortfall in a $2.5 billion capital raising, an agreement which has led to groundbreaking cases by two regulators, according to a new court document.

ASIC has been given a little over a month to provide ANZ with documents it collected during the course of its investigation into a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement, as the bank, which is facing a related criminal cartel case, mulls whether to file an application to stay the regulator's action.

Creditors of the failed Arrium Group have won access to documents handed over by third parties to the company's administrators for possible civil proceedings against the steel producer, which collapsed owing $2.3 billion.

ASIC has filed a lawsuit against ANZ alleging it breached its continuous disclosure obligations in relation to a $2.5 billion institutional share placement, which is also at the centre of a criminal cartel case against the bank.