A damning Principia report found KPMG punished staff who spoke up about unethical behaviour. Pressure to win work also drove partners to steal sales credits, lowball proposals and push staff to under-report hours. The former leadership team, most of whom have since walked, was branded “insular”: AFR

⚖️ Corporate: The NSW Supreme Court has found two majority directors of engineering consultancy Lanmar breached their directors’ duties by using ChatGPT instead of a lawyer to plan the removal of their co-director. ChatGPT treated it as an employment issue, producing a performance management plan, cited a constitution clause that didn’t exist and even suggested diverting business away from the company. It completely missed oppression under s 232 of the Corporations Act. The court found the conduct oppressive and ordered all shares be sold to a third party, forcing out every director: Supreme Court of NSW

⚖️ Disputes: Jurisdiction clauses are often waved through as boilerplate, but Corrs warns that’s a costly mistake. Its new guide to drafting jurisdiction clauses points out that a poorly drafted clause can trigger expensive satellite litigation over forum and parallel proceedings in multiple jurisdictions. A few of Corrs’ tips: (1) ditch “arising under”, which has been read to exclude pre-contractual misrepresentation claims, for “arising out of, relating to or in connection with”; (2) name a specific court system, like the courts of NSW, not “the courts of Australia”; and (3) align governing law with your chosen forum.

⚖️ Regulatory: ASIC has made an interim stop order on Australian Secure Capital Fund’s PDS, stopping it from offering units in three mortgage funds holding $251.8m in assets. ASIC is concerned the PDS doesn’t clearly disclose the funds’ loan portfolio and diversification, may be misleading about the cost of exiting, and doesn’t properly explain an investor reserve account used to cover losses. A final order could follow if the issues aren’t fixed. The order came out of ASIC’s surveillance of private credit funds, and Commissioner Simone Constant said ASIC will act swiftly where disclosure falls short: ASIC

A woman has won $461k in the NSW Supreme Court against a school groundskeeper who sexually abused her as a child in the 1980s. She ran the case herself, including cross-examining him. UNSW’s Henry Kha says it’s “extraordinary” for a self-rep to prove abuse from 40 years ago: ABC News

History is repeating itself. One more RBA hike next month and repayments on a median home will eat 37.4% of household income, a whisker off the December 1989 record, back when rates topped 15%. REA’s numbers show Queensland, SA and WA are already there: AFR

📉 Firmus’ abandoned $8bn IPO has split the market. Wilson Asset Management’s Oscar Oberg, a Firmus shareholder, says the flop will make private companies “very hesitant” to list. Bell’s James Nguyen disagrees, saying it just shows that peopele aren’t willing to just buy “anything at any rate”: Capital Brief

👗 Justin Levis, son of Cue Clothing founder Rod Levis, has emerged as a potential rescue bidder for Cue, a month after Hilco Capital tipped it into administration. Billionaire Larry Kestelman’s Brand Collective is also circling, with FTI Consulting running the sale: AFR

Glencore lists on the ASX from Wednesday via CHESS depositary interests, with no new shares or capital raise. CEO Gary Nagle reckons $5bn+ in local buying will propel it into the ASX 100 within two years. He’s also refusing to rule out another tilt at Rio Tinto: AFR

ASX shareholder Rosherville has filed for interim relief and leave in the Federal Court to bring a statutory derivative action against ASX directors and officers over the previous CHESS project. It alleges breaches of directors’ duties, though it makes no allegations against ASX itself. ASX will oppose the applications: ASX

Labor is averaging just 177,644 home completions a year, well short of the 260,000 needed for its 1.2 million homes target. Industry leaders say we’re 94,980 dwellings behind target, meaning the states will miss out on $11bn in stamp duty and GST: The Australian

Anthropic says its Claude AI went rogue again, including submitting a false tip in a Philadelphia homicide case and 20 incomplete visa applications. The White House is now requiring AI companies to notify affected parties and address security incidents involving their models.