Trials

Solicitor Alex Elliott has said it never clicked with him that members of the legal team running the Banksia class action were misleading an appeals court when his father -- the mastermind behind the alleged deception -- told him to sign cheques for lawyers that they could not cash.

The funder accused of a fraudulent scheme to pocket inflated fees from the Banksia Securities class action produced less than 200 documents to the contradictor in the case and invented a story about a routine email purging practice to explain the discovery hole, a court has heard.

The columnist behind two allegedly defamatory Australian Financial Review articles has told the court that he believed former Blue Sky managing director Dr Elaine Stead was "cretinously stupid" because of her "astonishingly ridiculous" behavior on social media at the time of the company's collapse.

Nine-owned Fairfax has denied that two Australian Financial Review articles implied that venture capitalist Dr Elaine Stead "deliberately" destroyed capital, as it seeks to significantly reduce the defamation case it faces.

The son of Banksia Securities class action funder Mark Elliott questioned his father on whether it was "right" to rip up a $64 million settlement with the collapsed lender's trustee if the deal didn't guarantee him a $12.8 million commission, a court has heard.

Lawyer Alex Elliott has told a judge he didn't know when he postdated cheques for members of the Banksia class action legal team that it was done to mislead the appeals court in the case, but has admitted that in hindsight "it doesn't look good".

Venture capitalist Dr Elaine Stead has taken the stand in a high-profile defamation case against the Nine-owned Fairfax, saying that she felt "shame, embarrassment, humiliation and guilt" over two allegedly defamatory Australian Financial Review articles about her role in the collapsed investment firm Blue Sky.

An employment partner with Norton Rose Fulbright, who has been referred by a judge to the legal watchdog for possible professional misconduct in a case by a former colleague, is under scrutiny in a second Fair Work suit, this time for allegedly destroying evidence.

The mastermind behind an alleged fraudulent scheme by members of the legal team running the class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities was a "brilliant operator", his son has told a court.

Former Blue Sky Capital venture capitalist Dr Elaine Stead is seeking over $671,000 in damages from the publisher of the Australian Financial Review over two articles she describes as a "misogynist attack" and "vitriolic abuse" that did significant damage to her professional reputation.