The Hon. Andrew Bell, Chief Justice of New South Wales has delivered the opening keynote address to the 2024 The Association of Litigation Funders of Australia Commercial Disputes Conference in Sydney. In a wide-ranging address, the Chief Justice detailed the growth of the litigation funding industry, calls in some quarters for increasing regulation, important recent decisions in Australia and the United Kingdom, litigation funding of international arbitration, class actions and contingency fees including the impact of 2019 Victorian legislation which permitted contingency fees in class actions brought in the Supreme Court of Victoria. His Honour observed that:
“Victoria appears now to be (at least numerically) the preferred forum for the hearing of class actions, driven by plaintiff lawyer funded claims. This is not, I respectfully venture to suggest, by reason of any perceived superiority of Victorian judges or the expedition of Victorian case management and civil appeals when compared to other jurisdictions but, rather and principally, because of the opportunity for solicitors to take a slice of the outcome of litigation which, as is well known, will frequently be settled for very large sums, depending on the nature of the claims. One might well think that this only illustrates the conflict of interest at play in circumstances where forums other than Victoria are available and where cases with no particular connection to Victoria may be managed and resolved with equal or superior despatch and efficiency and with greater convenience.”
Read the Chief Justice’s speech here: https://lnkd.in/gmJX3fXi