A magistrate has dismissed a bid to expand the cross examination of a JPMorgan witness in the closely watched criminal cartel case over a $2.5 billion ANZ share placement, calling it a “back door” attempt to bypass a prior court ruling.
The State of Queensland will not appeal a ruling that found it, as well as the operators of two Queensland dams, were negligent in the 2011 floods in the Southeast region of the state that left over 2,000 homes destroyed.
A committal hearing in the ANZ cartel case may run a further nine days next year due to ongoing arguments about subpoenas and privilege, which have derailed five planned days of cross-examination of key witnesses and led a Local Court Magistrate to proclaim she was “awful close” to ending her life.
The banks and executives facing criminal charges over alleged cartel conduct related to ANZ’s $2.5 billion share placement in 2015 will fight to widen their cross-examination of key ACCC witnesses after new information was brought to light in late submissions by the regulator.
A key witness from JPMorgan previously contested claims by the ACCC that a key component of an alleged cartel arrangement between four major banks around a $2.5 billion institutional share placement by ANZ was actually an ‘agreement,’ as opposed to a series of independent decisions, a court has heard.
Two key witnesses from JPMorgan have been grilled by lawyers for three major investments banks named in a high-stakes criminal cartel case as the banks seek to cast doubt on how the ACCC gathered evidence during its almost two-year cartel investigation.
A judge on Tuesday questioned how elderly group members struggling with the digital age can register in a ‘junk’ insurance class action against National Australia Bank, amid the postponement of hearing to approve the $49.5 million settlement reached in the case.
Funder IMF Bentham expects to bring in up to $130 million in income for backing the Queensland floods class action, after a judge ruled last week that the operator of two dams as well as the state government were responsible for the severity of the flooding that hit Southeast Queensland in 2011.
The Federal Court judge overseeing three class actions against the Commonwealth of Australia over allegedly toxic firefighting foam has criticised the government’s handling of the case, saying the court did not have to ask permission for how to run the proceedings.
The NSW Supreme Court has ruled against the operators of two Queensland dams as well as the state government, finding they were vicariously liable for the negligence of flood engineers in the 2011 Southeast Queensland floods that destroyed over 2,000 homes.