Potential new entrants to a major freight terminal in Queensland will be “better protected” by a last-minute promise by the terminal’s hopeful owner, Pacific National, than if the ACCC had succeeded in blocking the rail operator’s proposed $205 million acquisition, according to the judge who dismissed the competition watchdog’s case.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has apologised for botching the announcement of its plan to block the $15 billion merger of TPG and Vodafone, blaming a computer glitch for the error.
Melbourne-based civic compliance firm SARB Management Group wants to put the brakes on a case brought by tech company Vehicle Monitoring Systems over a patented method for detecting vehicles, in a dispute it says was finalised in a settlement reached almost five years ago.
Mining firm MACH Energy may move to strike out “inconsistent” pleadings in a $20 million lawsuit brought by its former managing director, Scott Winter, whose discovery delays have raised the ire of the judge hearing the case.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission chair James Shipton has clarified the regulator’s “why not litigate” approach to enforcement, saying it does not mean “litigate first” or “litigate everything”.
The High Court has agreed to take up an appeal by mining giant BHP Group Limited in its battle with the Australian Tax Office over an $82M tax bill.
The writing may be on the wall for common fund orders in class actions that put all unregistered group members on the hook for a litigation funder’s commission, after the High Court agreed Wednesday to take up landmark challenges by Westpac and BMW, experts say.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has dropped its probe into Blue Sky over possible violations of its continuous disclosure obligations, but the fund manager still faces three active shareholder class action investigations.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has suffered a major defeat in its challenge to Pacific National’s proposed $205 million acquisition of competitor Aurizon’s Queensland freight terminal, with a judge saying he was appeased by a last-minute promise from Pacific that it would not block third parties from accessing the terminal.
The High Court has upheld an appeal by a mortgage broker with a history of run-ins with the law, finding that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal could not take spent convictions into account when reviewing ASIC ban orders.