An Empirical Study of Australia's Class Action Regimes, Fifth Report: The First Twenty-Five Years of Class Actions in Australia

Abstract

March 2017 marked the 25th anniversary of Australia’s first and most important class action regime. In light of this important milestone, this fifth empirical report contains a detailed description of some of the major class actions that have been filed, and some of the most important developments that have been witnessed in Australia’s class action landscape, over the last 25 years. In addition, data is provided with respect to, among others, the volume of class action litigation in Australia’s four class action courts, the outcomes of resolved class actions, the average duration of settled class actions, the types of substantive claims that have been pursued in class actions, data on the extent to which litigation funders have been involved in class actions and data on closed classes and competing class actions since the ground-breaking ruling of the Full Federal Court of Australia in October 2016, with respect to common fund orders.