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Maurice Blackburn shuns rival firm in bid for class action leadership
Maurice Blackburn has lodged an appeal to overturn a decision which saw competitor firm Phi Finney McDonald gain carriage of a high-profile shareholder class action against BHP Billiton Ltd.
Emma Musgrave
In its appeal to the Federal Court last week, Maurice Blackburn sought to overturn a judge’s decision to award carriage of the matter to what it described as the “less-experienced plaintiff law firm”.
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The matter concerns the Fundão Dam collapse, which occurred in 2015 and is regularly described as Brazil's worst environmental disaster, resulting in the death of 19 people. At the time of its collapse, the dam was owned by Samarco, a joint venture between BHP Billiton and Vale.
Maurice Blackburn, Johnson Winter & Slattery and Phi Finney McDonald each brought on proceedings against BHP last year, which saw over 30,000 shareholders of the embattled mining giant sign up between them.
The Federal Court eventually ruled that Phi Finney McDonald should be the firm to run the action, after it was found they had been looking at the issues presented in the case the longest, being the first firm to file an action against BHP.
However last week Andrew Watson, national head of class actions at Maurice Blackburn, declared that after serious consideration, there were strong grounds to appeal the decision in the interests of group members that had selected Maurice Blackburn to run the matter.
“The court accepted that Maurice Blackburn’s funding arrangements would likely result in a higher percentage return to group members but chose to award carriage of the claim to a more expensive and less experienced alternative – we can’t see how that is in the interests of class members,” Mr Watson said.
“Maurice Blackburn is Australia’s leading class actions practice and we have an unparalleled track record of running the nation’s largest and most complex class actions and securing the biggest recoveries in Australian class actions for our clients.”
Further, Mr Watson noted that his firm’s appeal raises a number of issues concerning the court’s findings, including: “failing to properly consider Maurice Blackburn’s proposed Litigation Services Fee despite the fact that it would provide better returns to group members; [and] not preferring Maurice Blackburn’s secondary option of a ‘no win, no fee’ arrangement, despite the court accepting that the ‘no win, no fee’ arrangement would likely result in a higher percentage of any settlement or judgment sum being available for distribution to group members”.
“In all class action carriage contests the interests of the class members should be paramount – we think this judgment failed to get that right,” Mr Watson concluded.
