In brief
In recent months, the funding of class actions has been prominent in the legal press. The issues canvassed have included the regulation of third party funders, the case for and against lawyers charging contingency fees, attempts by lawyers to establish third party funding vehicles, the Productivity Commission's draft recommendations in relation to the private funding of litigation, and the Commonwealth Attorney-General's proposed review of the litigation funding sector.
Many of those articles have involved stakeholders putting the case for their preferred position, in some instances with a sense of impending doom for either the business community or access to the justice system. Given the range and strength of views on these issues, it can be difficult even for informed readers to 'sort the wheat from the chaff'.
With those difficulties in mind, we have prepared this edition of Class Action Insights with a view to providing our clients with a brief guide to the key issues and our views on how the current questions should be resolved.