Welcome to the second issue of Class Action for 2011.
As this issue is published, we are analysing the results of Mallesons’ survey of corporate counsel, which explores the challenges and issues faced by in-house counsel in Australia. Early indications suggest that class actions are a concern to a significant number of corporate counsel of Australian companies, reflecting the substantial number of class actions underway and the high profile that class actions have in the media both in Australia and overseas.
Mallesons’ corporate counsel survey was conducted in June and the report, Compass 2011, will be released in August.
The legitimacy of various approaches to funding class actions continues to attract interest. In their article, Alex Morris and Simon Burnett consider the recent Chameleon decision, in which the NSW Court of Appeal concluded that the funding agreement in question could be rescinded by the funded party under the Corporations Act as it constituted an unlicensed financial product. Denis Brock provides an update on Hong Kong’s attitude to litigation funding.
With the Federal Court recently approving the settlement of number of significant class actions, one aspect of a settlement that is not often considered is the legal costs element. In the Amcor/Visy cartel class action, for example, legal costs were approved in the sum of $25 million. Armen Varvachtian and Peta Stevenson look at the factors a Court will have regard to in considering whether the legal costs aspect of a settlement is appropriate.
Megan Smith and Peta Stevenson provide a summary of those parts of the new Federal Court Rules (which come into effect on 1 August 2011) relevant to class actions, and an update on the pre-litigation requirements across Australia.
Finally, we invite you to peruse our Recent Developments section, which contains up-to-date details not only of recent class action settlements but also of significant prospective and current class actions.
We hope that you find this issue of Class Action interesting, and look forward to sharing the results of Compass 2011 with you in coming weeks.
As always, we welcome your feedback.
Best wishes
Moira Saville
General content panel
Signpost
Compass 2011
Following the success of the Mallesons' Directions 2011 report launched earlier this year, we have conducted a second survey exploring the issues and challenges facing Corporate Counsel. We will launch a report on the survey findings - Compass 2011- in August.
Recent developments
Click here for information on newly announced class actions, current proceedings and recent settlements.