NAB faces the US Supreme Court

Plaintiff shareholders claimed that Homeside, NAB’s former Florida-based mortgage unit, had inflated its earnings targets to unrealistic levels and then deliberately manipulated the value of its mortgage portfolio in order to hit those targets.

NAB responded that Homeside had merely made a mistake, using an incorrect mathematical model to calculate its portfolio value.

The justices appeared to be leaning towards throwing the case out, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stating it had “Australia written all over it”, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Justice Antonin Scalia expressed concern about “dragging American courts” into an essentially Australian matter.

The Australian government filed a brief arguing that the lawsuit should not proceed.

A decision will be handed down in June.