Advice from non-lawyers and “routed” through a legal practitioner at multidisciplinary partnership PricewaterhouseCoopers cannot be shielded under legal professional privilege, the Federal Court has found.
A judge has rejected the Australian Taxation Office’s claim that legal professional privilege does not apply to any communications between PricewaterhouseCoopers and its client, meat processor JBS, but has found that many of the reviewed documents do not satisfy the test of privilege.
A former auditor of collapsed video company BigUn has had his company auditor registration suspended for a year following an application by the corporate regulator over a conflict of interest.
Mining company TerraCom has lost a case seeking to shield a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which is investigating claims current and former executives falsified coal quality results.
Another fight over privilege may be on the cards in a shareholder class action over the collapse of the Hastie Group, with Deloitte flagging its partners may claim privilege over certain parts of the accounting giant’s evidence.
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.
Grant Thornton can’t dodge a “significant” counterclaim accusing the accounting firm of charging for “unnecessary and pointless” work in a case against a former client over $119,000 in unpaid fees.
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.
National Australia Bank and HSBC should be “jointly and severally liable” to pay a portion of the costs of a failed case brought by Dick Smith’s receivers against the company’s former directors because the banks stood to gain financially if the lawsuit was successful, the NSW Supreme Court has heard.
Accounting giant Deloitte has lost its bid to throw out a former client’s lawsuit alleging negligence and fraud over a failed interposition under tax law that occurred more than 16 years ago.