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Old Town Square, Prague

In just a few days’ time, I will be publishing my annual survey The Top Ten D&O Stories of the year. For now, though, we are all celebrating the holidays, and no one really wants to be reading about case law developments or insurance coverage issues. So instead, I thought I would do a post featuring my favorite travel pictures from 2025. I freely concede that this is totally self-indulgent, allowing me to bask in the delight of some of my favorite travel experiences. But just to show that this isn’t just about me, below I invite readers to send in their favorite 2025 travel pictures, which I will publish on this site over the coming weeks. Please see the instructions below on how to submit your travel pictures.Continue Reading Top Travel Pictures of 2025

The D&O Diary was on assignment Down Under last week, visiting the beautiful country of Australia during the late Southern Hemisphere winter. It was great to be able to return to one of my favorite places to visit.Continue Reading Australia

Umesh Pratapa

The typical U.S. D&O insurance policy does not provide coverage for fines and penalties. The standard definition of Loss in U.S. D&O insurance policies provides that Loss does not include “fines, penalties, and matters deemed uninsurable under applicable law.” The situation may be different in some countries outside the U.S. In the following guest post, Umesh Pratapa, considers the question of the extent to which D&O policies may under certain circumstances provide coverage for fines and penalties. Umesh is the Author of the handbook on D&O liability insurance published by Institute of Directors (IOD), India, and Consultant – liability insurance. I would like to thank Umesh for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Umesh’s article.Continue Reading Guest Post: D&O Insurance – Coverage for Penalties: New Insights from Recent Australian Judgement

As ESG-related litigation has developed, one definitive trend has been the emergence of litigation involving allegations of “greenwashing” – that is, claims alleging that companies overstated their ESG credentials in order to win business, attract customers, or score virtue points. To date, the greenwashing claims have emerged primarily in the U.S. and Europe. Now, Australia is getting into the act, as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has brought and won its first greenwashing civil penalty action. As discussed below, the action involved claims that Vanguard’s Australian affiliate made misleading statements about its ESG-sorting processes for one of its index funds.Continue Reading Australian Regulator Wins First Greenwashing Enforcement Action

Persia Navidi

Readers of this blog well know that one of the current hot topics in the world of D&O is ESG – and not just in the United States, but in Europe, and elsewhere as well. In the following guest post, Persia Navidi, Partner in Insurance, Cyber and Climate Risk at Hicksons Lawyers, provides an overview of the state of play with regard to ESG in Australia, and also discusses the related insurance issues. I would like to thank Persia for allowing me to publish her article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Persia’s article.Continue Reading Guest Post: ESG and Financial Lines Insurance in Australia

The D&O Diary is on assignment in the Asia Pacific region this week, with a first stop in the beautiful Australian city of Sydney. Even though it was still Southern Hemisphere late winter/early spring while I was in Australia, the weather was beautiful and even summerlike. I was fortunate that my meeting schedule in Sydney allowed me a little bit of time to enjoy the weather and the sunshine, as the pictures below reflect. Continue Reading Sydney

The D&O Diary was on assignment this past week in the Asia Pacific region, with the first stop in the great country of Australia. It is always great to be in Australia, but the Southern Hemisphere Summer is a particularly good time to be there. After a day or two of clouds and some rain on arrival, the weather turned particularly glorious, as reflected in the pictures below. Continue Reading Summer Down Under

Jeff Lubitz

Jarett Sena

In the following guest post, Jeff Lubitz, Managing Director, ISS Securities Class Action Services, and Jarett Sena, Director of Litigation Analysis, ISS Securities Class Action Services, review an important recent Australian High Court decision in which the court paved the way for foreign shareholders to join the collective investor action pending in Australia against BHP Billiton Limited. I would like to thank Jeff and Jarett for allowing me to publish their article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is the authors’ article.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Australian High Court OKs Foreign Shareholders In BHP Collective Investor Action

Among the topics of principal focus on this site are U.S. securities class action lawsuits, although from time to time I do write about collective investor actions outside the U.S (here, for example). The fact is that in recent years there have been a number of important and interesting developments in collective investor actions outside of the U.S. In a recent paper, “Five Current Class Actions Outside of North American Investors Should Be Aware Of,” Jeff Lubitz, Managing Director, ISS Securities Class Action Services, takes a look at some key cases outside of the U.S. to watch in coming months. A copy of the paper can be found here.
Continue Reading Key Collective Investor Actions Outside the U.S. to Watch

An Australian Federal Court class action lawsuit alleging that the Australian Federal Government failed to disclose to investors the climate change risks associated with the government’s sovereign bonds has survived in part an attempt by the government to have the action dismissed. In an October 8, 2021 Judgment (here), a Federal Court of Australia Judge “declined to strike-out” the applicant’s claim based on allegations of misleading or deceptive conduct, while agreeing with the government to “strike-out” others of the applicant’s claims, as discussed below. The court’s rulings in this case arguably represent something of a milestone in the development of climate change-related litigation.
Continue Reading Australian Bond Climate Change-Related Disclosure Class Action to Proceed