A former finance manager from Hastie Services and key witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial against two of the company’s former executives only pointed the finger at former COO Ian Thompson to avoid jail time herself, a jury has heard.
A judge has allowed the applicant in a class action over allegedly dangerous combustible cladding to sue a German-based cladding manufacturer, saying there was a prima facie case the company violated the Australian Consumer Law.
The government has won a victory following a lengthy trial in a class action brought on behalf of businesses alleging they were harmed when the Rudd Government cancelled a program that subsidised home insulation installations during the economic downturn.
The former CEO of a unit of collapsed construction firm Hastie Group told staff to “raid the balance books” to make up financial targets linked to his bonus, prosecutors said at the outset of a two-month criminal trial.
UK-based building products giant Hill & Smith Holdings wants to drag a Singaporean entity into its road safety patent dispute with Australian company Safe Barriers, whose directors are ex-employees of Hill & Smith.
A judge has granted discovery of up to 32,000 documents just months out from the Forge investor class action trial, as she blasted the insurance company respondents for wasting resources after they failed to comply with the court’s previous orders.
Australian distribution firm Halifax Vogel has struck back at a class action alleging it violated consumer laws with its representations regarding the quality of Alucobond cladding, denying that the cladding puts buildings and their occupants at risk of harm or death from fire.
Private construction company Hutchinson Builders has resolved a lawsuit it brought against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission seeking to quash what it called an invalid notice to produce documents to the regulator, which has vowed to bring cases against the construction industry this year.
Lawyers for Deloitte were questioned by an appeals court Monday after arguing that the accounting giant’s partners had no access to the firm’s files, stored in a locked “litigation room”, and no power to hand them over to comply with discovery orders in a shareholder class action over the collapse of client Hastie Group.
A judge has refused to contemplate delays to the long-running investor class action against defunct engineering and construction company Forge Group, as lawyers for some of the respondents warn of a “real risk” that the current trial date might need to be vacated.