Case Reports
2023-2024
Location:
Australia
Serious Financial and Corporate Crime
Corporate offenders found to be engaged in foreign bribery are likely to face higher penalties after the High Court unanimously upheld an appeal in its August 2023 decision in The King v Jacobs Group (Australia) Pty Ltd. The decision is a win for the CDPP which presented arguments before the High Court.
The appeal focused on the Court’s interpretation of s70.2(5)(b) of the Criminal Code (Cth) and held that the maximum penalty must be set with reference to the gross value of the benefit obtained from the offending, as opposed to the net value after the expense of the offending was offset.
The ruling is also likely to affect calculating penalties under s70.2(5) of the Criminal Code in a range of cases pursuant to the Corporations Act and the Competition and Consumer Act, including cartel conduct, misleading or deceptive conduct, market manipulation and insider trading.
Location:
Victoria
Serious Financial and Corporate Crime
Date of Judgment: 23 August 2023
Court: County Court of Victoria at Melbourne
2022-2023
Location:
New South Wales
Serious Financial and Corporate Crime
The story of one of Australia’s largest and most complex criminal tax fraud enterprises is almost complete after years of the conspiracies operating, blackmail by co-offenders, a subsequent AFP/ATO investigation including surveillance and finally numerous prosecutions by the CDPP.
2021-2022
Location:
Victoria
Serious Financial and Corporate Crime
On 15 June 2022, the County Court of Victoria convicted and fined Avanteos $1.71 million for failing to update defective disclosure statements, which the Court described as a very serious failure of corporate governance.