The future of class actions - potential issues for financial institutions, their directors and insurers

The evolving class actions landscape in Australia continues to create both challenges and opportunities for financial institutions, their directors and insurers. Joined by Wendy Harris KC, we recently hosted an event at our Melbourne office on the current issues facing defendants and their insurers in securities and consumer class actions and what the future might hold.

Below we summarise the key themes from the panel discussion.

It is too early to call the end of securities class actions in Australia

While we have seen recent losses for class action law firms and funders (Myer; Iluka Resources; Worley; Zonia), we believe it is too early to call the end of securities class actions in Australia. The absence of proof of loss in these cases is likely to be overcome in future, similar, class actions with more focused attention of assumptions for the expert to prove market based causation loss – it is only a matter of time.