Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Rich

ASIC v Rich
Court	Supreme Court of New South Wales
Decided	18 November 2009
Citations	[2009] NSWSC 1229, (2009) 236 FLR 1; 75 ACSR 1
Court membership
Judge sitting	Austin J
Keywords
Directors' duties

Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Rich^[1] was one of the biggest civil cases in NSW Supreme Court history, in which the Australian Securities and Investments Commission accused former executive directors of One.Tel telecommunications company, Jodee Rich and Mark Silbermann, of having failed to meet their duty of care in the months leading up to the company's collapse in May 2001. The legal process ran for almost nine years, took up 232 sitting days and generated 16,642 pages of transcripts.^[2] In November 2009, the NSW Supreme Court Justice Robert Austin comprehensively dismissed ASIC's case against the Rich and Silbermann, saying the corporate regulator had failed to prove any aspect of its pleaded case against either defendant.^[3]