The Review: Class Actions in Australia 2023/2024

King & Wood Mallesons’ annual report, ‘The Review: Class Actions in Australia’ analyses judgments, events and developments across class actions between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024.

Our 2023/2024 report reveals fewer claims commenced and a shift from securities actions towards consumer and regulatory claims. It also finds the Federal Court and the Victorian Supreme Court to be the forums of choice.

Highlights include:

• A continued decline in new class actions with 44 new filings, marking the lowest number of class actions filed in total since 2016/2017.
• Consumer, financial product and employment class actions claims headline new filings.
• The Federal Court dismissed 3 securities class actions in just under 6 months. To put this in context, there have only been 2 securities class actions that proceeded to trial before this year, and more than 50 had settled out of court.
• The Federal Court and the Victorian Supreme Court were the only jurisdictions with new actions filed in the review period.
• At least 20 class action settlements were approved in 2023/2024, representing over $600M in settlement funds.

What do these findings mean for the class actions landscape? And what is next for class actions in Australia?

Listen to the highlights on our podcast.