Catherine Rossiter v ANZ Group Holdings Limited

COURT OR TRIBUNAL

Federal Court of Australia

DATE FILED (OR FIRST HEARING DATE)

09/11/2023

LITIGATION TYPE

Corporate Accountability

SUBJECT MATTER

Transparency and disclosure

REVIEW TYPE

N/A

SUMMARY

From website: “Equity Generation Lawyers represents ANZ shareholder Catherine Rossiter in an application for preliminary discovery in the Federal Court of Australia. Ms Rossiter seeks copies of ANZ’s internal risk management framework because she is concerned the bank may not be properly managing the twin risks of climate change and biodiversity loss. The action was filed on 9 November 2023.”

“Mrs Rossiter sought information from ANZ by way of preliminary discovery about its risk management systems to enable her to determine whether the bank’s governance systems adequately dealt with climate change and biodiversity risks. ANZ published its 2023 annual report on 13 November 2023. The report stated that “[o]n 9 November 2023 our Board Risk Committee approved that ‘climate risk’ will be elevated as a key material risk” (p. 29). It also noted that going forward the bank is “further strengthening our enterprise-wide approach to managing climate risk. We are working to embed this change and expect to disclose our progress in our 2024 reporting.” (p. 29). ANZ acknowledged the bank was “[c]ontinuing to evolve our strategy, policies, processes, products and services to seek to manage the risks and opportunities associated with climate change and nature, including biodiversity loss” (p. 8). The parties agreed that Mrs Rossiter would discontinued the proceedings with no order as to costs, which took place on 22 April 2024. Shortly after this, ANZ announced that it will no longer provide project finance to new or expanded oil and gas projects, ruling out its involvement with the Papua LNG project.”

CASE DOCUMENTS

Catherine Rossiter v ANZ Group Holdings Limited
Court file
News article