Class Actions and Litigation Funding

Class actions place an enormous burden on corporate Australia and the growth of the country’s sophisticated third party litigation funding market has been controversial. Over recent years, various law reform bodies have examined whether the returns made by funders and the fees charged by plaintiffs’ lawyers—compared to the recovery by group members—strikes an appropriate balance. 

But reforms may now be on the horizon, with the findings of two key examinations due to be presented in 2018:

As these key class action battlegrounds emerge in 2018, two significant events in the class action calendar in April will bring together experts from Australia and the US to debate the need for funding and class action reforms in Australia:

1. the Federal Court of Australia and Monash University hosting a seminar on “Increased Regulation of Litigation Funding”; and
2. the Law Council of Australia and the University of Sydney hosting a seminar on “Litigation Funding, Class Actions & International Dispute Resolution”.

Eminent speakers include Professor Deborah R. Hensler of Stanford Law School; the Honourable Justice Sarah Derrington of the Federal Court of Australia and President of the ALRC; the Honourable Justice Michael Lee of the Federal Court of Australia; John Walker, CEO of Investor Claim Partner (and co-founder of IMF Bentham Limited); and Herbert Smith Freehills’ class action specialist Jason Betts (representing the views of corporate defence counsel).

Bespoke session

If you have an interest in discussing how class action risks or the proposed reforms might be relevant to your sectors or regions, we would be delighted to arrange a bespoke session with your teams.

Otherwise we will provide a further update when the reports are published.

The links to third party events have been provided for information purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement or support of the third party event or its content.