Japanese bankng giant SMBC has emerged as the latest lender with exposure to an alleged fraud carried out by Sydney-based Forum Finance, with proceedings filed seeking recovery of almost $99 million it says it paid to a unit of Forum Group and controversial director Bill Papas.
A unit of Australian funds manager One Investment Group is seeking to recoup almost $90 million in debts allegedly owed by three former directors of collapsed property developer Steller Group.
The Federal Court has ordered the winding up of Forum Finance, which has been accused by Westpac and French investment bank Societe Generale of a $263 million fraud, as details of the company’s jetsetting director’s planned return to Australia from Europe remain murky.
A $400 million class action brought by Shine Lawyers against a major Telstra and Foxtel contractor will be stayed after the company was placed into administration three months out from trial.
The director of Forum Finance, which has been accused by Westpac and Societe Generale of a $263 million fraud, is in Europe and will return to Australia over the weekend, although he has refused to tell his lawyer his exact location, a court has heard.
The auditor of stockbroker Halifax Investment Services, whose 2008 collapse left around $200 million in client funds trapped, has pleaded guilty to the first criminal charges brought over auditing services in Australia.
Four executives of the failed Arrium have named auditor KPMG as a “concurrent wrongdoer” in defending a shareholder class action over a $754 million capital raising two years prior to the mining and steel giant’s $2 billion collapse.
A settlement reached in a lawsuit by the liquidators of collapsed steel giant Arrium against 10 former company directors accused of insolvent trading has been approved by a judge, who noted that while the settlement amount was “substantial”, the deal involved a “substantial compromise”.
The CEO of Bob Jane T-Marts has failed to halt his public examination by the liquidator of the firm Last Lap, which is currently involved in a shareholder dispute with the Australian tyre franchise.
Members of the Binetter family have sued the trustees of a Nudie Juice co-founder Emil Binetter’s estate for settlement details over debts claimed against the family in a bid to extinguish any judgment debt against the estate, a court has heard.