Sydney-based liquidator David Iannuzzi has been disqualified from serving as an insolvency practitioner for 10 years, in the first case brought by the Australian Tax Office under the Corporations Act’s ban on tax avoidance schemes.
The former AMP general counsel who alleges she was bullied and sacked for complaining about the wealth manager’s fees for no service was not a whistleblower, but just one of many employees who raised concerns about the practice, the firm has said in a defence to the fired lawyer’s $2.7 million lawsuit.
A judge has ordered the legal teams behind two settled Surfstitch class actions to have another crack at the opt out notice, saying the current version is “just too confusing” for group members.
A judge has dismissed three proceedings by shareholders against the liquidator of failed global financial services firm Babcock & Brown, in a finding that highlights “serious problems” with market-based causation and may have ramifications for securities class actions.
A judge has signed off on a settlement of a long-running class action against Westpac unit BankSA, and has ruled the law firm that brought the case has an equitable right to unpaid legal costs for investigating the case before it found a funder.
A judge has ordered all proceedings against Dick Smith to be heard concurrently during a marathon three month trial, after the plaintiffs in a shareholder class action brought against the failed electronics retailer’s insurers aborted a fleeting bid to temporarily discontinue their case.
Online fashion retailer Surfstitch has reached an in-principle settlement in two shareholder class actions, about nine months after an initial agreement to resolve the dispute derailed.
Awaiting a Full Court ruling in a case involving similar claims of privilege against self-incrimination by partners at another accounting giant, the judge in a consolidated class action against PricewaterhouseCoopers over its auditing of the failed Vocation has vacated the February trial date.
Two former Dick Smith directors targeted by dual class actions have expanded their case against Deloitte over the retailer’s 2016 collapse, saying if the company was found liable for shareholder losses then the auditor should be blamed for its shoddy work on the company’s financial statements during its float three years earlier.
The plaintiffs in an investor class action filed against Dick Smith’s insurers want a separate hearing from four other representative and company proceedings against the failed electronics retailer, arguing there would be only the “thinnest basis” for concurrent proceedings if their strike out application was successful.