Colonial First State Super Insurance Class Action

The legal fees are being paid by litigation funder Woodsford Litigation Funding Limited.

Group members will have no liability for legal costs if the class action is unsuccessful.

Woodsford Litigation Funding Limited has also agreed to meet any adverse costs order, in the event the proceedings are unsuccessful. In that case, neither the lead applicant nor any group members will have liability for costs.

It is usually the case in Australia that if a party is successful, part of the costs and disbursements will be paid to them by the unsuccessful party. If the class action is successful and a judgment of damages is awarded to the group members, the costs and fees paid by the funder in order to bring the proceedings to a successful outcome will be deducted from the amount of damages received from the defendants. The final legal costs will depend on the amount of work required to resolve the claim.

In return for funding the action, the litigation funder expects to receive a percentage of the total damages awarded. The funder’s fee varies depending upon the stage at which the proceeding resolves and the amount of their investment in running the action.

It is impossible at this stage to provide any specific figure that each group member can expect to receive. This is due to a variety of factors.

The amount each group member will receive will depend on the premiums they have paid for their insurance for the period they held that insurance.

Due to the size of each individual claim, the costs of running this action as an individual would quickly exceed the potential damages recoverable.

As each class member’s claim involves many common questions of fact and law, running this action as a class reduces the average cost of litigation to a client by only addressing the common issues once at trial, instead of multiple times.

The Shine Lawyers Class Action team is led by National Special Counsel Jan Saddler, a solicitor with more than 25 years’ experience running large and complex legal disputes in Australia and England.

Jan has worked for one of the largest commercial law firms in Australia, where she was involved in a number of class actions and multi-party disputes. She has also worked at one of the largest global professional services firms, as an in-house lawyer running and managing disputes involving claims worth more than $250 million.

Colonial First State Super Insurance Class Action is led by Rebecca Jancauskas, Practice Leader with Shine Lawyers' Class Actions department. She has represented Australians who have suffered harm and loss as a result of defective products, environmental damage, financial mismanagement and human rights abuses and has secured settlements in a number of the high profile class actions she has run.

Click here for more information on Shine Lawyers' Class Action expertise.