Financial Services AU
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September 14, 2026
Ashurst Adds HSF Kramer Lawyer To Private Capital Team
Ashurst Perkins Coie has lured Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer special counsel Ben Plotnik as a Melbourne-based partner in its corporate practice team.
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September 14, 2026
ACCC Makes Realestate.com Scrap Agent All-In Listing Rule
REA Group, owner of Australia's largest online residential real estate listing portal realestate.com.au, has agreed to remove contract restrictions requiring agencies to list all or most of their properties on the platform as part of court-enforceable undertaking by the ACCC over competition concerns.
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September 14, 2026
McPherson's, Ex-CEO Appeal Misleading Investors Finding
Skincare company McPherson's Ltd has filed for leave to appeal a Federal Court ruling that the company misled investors over late disclosure of sales forecasts and that its former CEO breached his duty of care.
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September 11, 2026
ASIC Moves To Block Lawyers, Media From Director Details
ASIC on Friday said it was considering changes to the agency's company register, seeking to provide additional public data for free, while proposing to block access to "sensitive" information about company directors, such as their dates of birth, from lawyers and journalists.
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September 11, 2026
Parliament Requires Court Orders To Void Unnotified Mergers
Mergers that fail regulatory notification requirements will no longer be automatically voided under new rules passed by Parliament on Thursday, with the ACCC required to first obtain Federal Court approval to cancel the transactions.
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September 11, 2026
Tabcorp's $1.4B Tax Deduction Appeal Rejected By High Court
The High Court of Australia has rejected Tabcorp's application for special leave to appeal a ruling that denied it a $1.49 billion tax deduction over alleged entitlements linked to the termination of gaming licenses in Victoria, based on there being "no financial arrangement" at the time the licenses expired.
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September 11, 2026
High Court Won't Hear Former NAB Employee's Appeal
The High Court of Australia has dismissed an appeal from a former NAB employee over a decision that the federal Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act precluded her from pursuing a claim against the bank under Victoria's Wrongs Act.
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September 11, 2026
Johnson Winter Slattery Opens NY Office For US Investors
Australian commercial law firm Johnson Winter Slattery has opened its first overseas office in New York in a bid to help US clients gain regulatory approvals to invest in Australia.
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September 10, 2026
Victorian Criminal Bar Rebuts 'Wrong Judges' Critique
The Criminal Bar Association of Victoria is defending the state's judges and magistrates after an opinion piece by former Victorian Chief Crown Prosecutor Gavin Silbert KC criticised the state's judicial appointments and warned against election-driven "law-and-order promises".
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September 10, 2026
High Court Takes Super Trustee Commission Fee Class Action
The High Court on Thursday agreed to hear an appeal over a decision dismissing a class action accusing former NAB unit NULIS Nominees, as trustee for the MLC Super Fund, of wrongly continuing to charge fund members for trailing commissions to advisers after a fund transfer.
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September 10, 2026
Equity Trustees Exec Blames Super Losses On 'Other Parties'
The executive director of Equity Trustees told a parliamentary joint committee on Thursday that the firm has not compensated investors for their losses in the collapsed First Guardian and Shield funds because "other parties are responsible."
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September 10, 2026
HSF Chair Says ASIC Over-Regulation Pushing Directors Away
Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Chair and senior partner Rebecca Maslen-Stannage has struck out at ASIC for excessive regulation arguing Australian-listed company directors want to move to private firms as they feel "the ever-growing burden" of over-regulation alongside securities class action threats, in a Bathurst Lecture speech on Thursday evening.
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September 10, 2026
ART Upholds ASIC Five-Year Bans On Flawed Super Advice
The Administrative Review Tribunal upheld the five-year bans ASIC gave to financial advisers Andrew Hanley and Shane Monte Silva, holding the pair engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by telling clients to invest their superannuation in the now-collapsed Shield and First Guardian funds even though they knew the advice to be flawed.
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September 10, 2026
Maurice Blackburn Plans Rival Corporate Travel, PwC Suit
Maurice Blackburn is investigating a class action proposal alleging misconduct by Corporate Travel Management and its former auditor PwC Australia, setting up a potential carriage dispute with Phi Finney McDonald.
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September 10, 2026
Shield Auditor BDO Resists Audit Info Access Request
BDO, auditor of the now-collapsed Shield Master Fund, pushed back Thursday against a bid for lawyers representing liquidators for the fund's trustee to access documents related to BDO's audit procedures, saying the liquidators hadn't proposed sufficient safeguards to protect the confidentiality of the documents.
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September 10, 2026
KPMG Procurement Ban Extended To End Of October
The Department of Finance has extended the current ban on KPMG Australia bidding for government contracts until the end of October as the deadline for the government's review of the auditing giant's governance, culture, ethics and integrity frameworks is pushed back.
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September 09, 2026
Judge Waivers On ASIC, AusSuper $30M Death Benefit Deal
ASIC and AustralianSuper have agreed to a $30 million penalty to resolve allegations the super fund breached its legal duties though not deliberately by delaying thousands of death benefit claims, with a Federal Court judge seeking further details on management oversight before approving the deal.
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September 09, 2026
Andrew Clements KC Appointed To Victorian Supreme Court
Andrew Clements KC has been appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria sitting in the common law division, which hears matters concerning property, tort, contract law, wills and estates, and appeals from lower courts and tribunals, the court announced on Tuesday.
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September 09, 2026
Westpac Says KPMG Withheld Allens Reports Over Privilege
Westpac has revealed KPMG initially refused to provide Allens' investigation reports into the auditor's whistleblower scandal, citing legal professional privilege, before later handing over partially-redacted versions.
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September 09, 2026
Justice Muston Says Bar Has 'Stubborn' Diversity Problem
The Supreme Court of NSW Justice Edward Muston has advocated for the Australian legal profession, particularly the bar, to better represent the community it serves by giving opportunities across the board given limited diversity is "a particularly stubborn problem."
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September 08, 2026
Choosi Misled Customers On Insurance Price Comparisons
A Federal Court judge on Tuesday backed ASIC's allegations that insurance comparison site Choosi misled customers by saying it compared life and funeral insurance products from a range of insurers, when it was two insurers at most.
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September 08, 2026
ASIC Bans Ex-Sequoia CEO Crole For 10 Years On Interprac
ASIC has banned former Sequoia Financial Group CEO Garry Crole from managing a financial services business for 10 years due to competence and diligence failures in his management of subsidiary Interprac which steered thousands of superannuation customers to invest roughly $677 million in collapsed Shield and First Guardian funds.
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September 08, 2026
Court Approves Warburg Pincus' $700M CreditorWatch Deal
A New South Wales Supreme Court judge has approved private equity giant Warburg Pincus' purchase of commercial credit and risk reporting services platform CreditorWatch, in a deal worth around $700 million.
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September 08, 2026
Justice Pike To Head NSW Supreme Court Class Actions
The Supreme Court of New South Wales said Justice Ian Pike has moved to the Commercial List and is now in charge of managing class actions across both the Equity and Common Law divisions, in one of five key administrative changes in effect from Monday.
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September 08, 2026
SA Law Society Opposes Gageler's National Uniform Law Push
The Law Society of South Australia President David Colovic has opposed High Court of Australia Chief Justice Stephen Gageler's calls for the Legal Profession Uniform Law to become a "truly national" system.