Accounting giant Deloitte is digging in for a fight over a court order to produce documents to a shareholder class over the firm’s auditing of collapsed engineering company Hastie Group, saying partners forced to hand over the files don’t have access to them.
Supermarket giant Woolworths has been hit with a class action on behalf of investors who allegedly suffered losses when the company revised its sales and profit guidance and revealed it had been using the wrong pricing competitiveness and stock availability metrics.
An Australian mortgage investment manager has been hit with a class action, alleging it charged excessive fees on loans and made misleading representations to borrowers.
Mortgage aggregator Connective Group has lost an appeal of a ruling that gave the greenlight to a shareholder’s derivative lawsuit against company directors and Macquarie Bank over the sale of 25 percent of the business to the bank.
An international IP dispute between the Royal Australian Mint and its Canadian counterpart over a patent for printed commemorative coins has settled, three months after Australia revealed its “knockout claim” in the case.
The $92 million payout to two funders that financed the recently settled S&P Global class actions shows the need for continued scrutiny of litigation funding agreements, experts say, but whether it is a sign of windfalls to come or is a ghost of commission’s past is another question.
OPSM owner Luxottica has agreed to make its franchise system more transparent after an investigation by the consumer watchdog found the eyewear giant’s disclosures weren’t up to scratch.
Australian banknote manufacturer CCL Secure has successfully blocked British rival De La Rue International from registering a patent for a banknote security device.
A court has struck out defamation claims brought by embattled Quintis founder Frank Wilson against the company’s former directors over ASX statements he alleges suggested he knew about the company’s termination of a supply contract with Nestle’s dermatology unit, Galderma Laboratories.
The Federal Court has ordered Queensland online news company Touchpoint Media to pay over $300,000 in wages owed to journalists and slapped the company with a $265,000 fine.