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Addressing corporate misconduct still has ‘long way to go’
Reflecting on the recent Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, plaintiff law firm Maurice Blackburn said Australia still has “a long way to go in addressing large scale corporate misconduct”.
Grace Ormsby
“The class action landscape is rapidly evolving in Australia, and this is largely in response to a broad acceptance that the regime plays an important role in addressing issues of mass wrongdoing,” according to the firm’s national head of class actions, Andrew Watson.
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He spoke ahead of the 2018 Corporate Conduct and Class Actions Symposium, which will bring together a number of the “sharpest corporate, legal and political minds in the country.”
Speakers will “explore how mass wrongdoing affects us all,” and include ACCC chairman Rod Sims as keynote, OECD director Greg Medcraft, ALRC’s president Justice Sarah Derrington and former Victorian premier and current CBUS chair Steve Bracks.
Mr Watson is unsurprised “that in the context of the banking and finance royal commission and other revelations of corporate misconduct that class actions are being more widely discussed.”
The fact is, “that as an enforcement mechanism it intersects with accountability efforts in many facets of society designed to ensure fairness,” he explained.
He said “our regulators have widely endorsed the role private enforcement can play in providing broad access to justice for mass wrongs.”
The 19 November Sydney event will explore current domestic challenges as well as global trends in the class action landscape.
