Investor Class Actions

Almost every day, the financial press reports something about investor class actions that have been launched or are expected. In the current economic climate, many investors, large and small, have lost a lot of money. Often, sometimes at the instigation of a litigation funder, they identify someone to sue and join forces in a class action.

The class action concept has a capacity to arouse passions. It is seen by some as providing access to justice and a means for the efficient handling by a court of numerous claims. Others perceive the class action as a procedure that enables lawyers and litigation funders to make a lot of money.

Certainly the class action has given rise to its own set of issues: pleading problems; numerous and protracted interlocutory disputes; problems of proof of causation of loss and the associated US concept of "fraud on the market".

The sixth in a series of monographs published by the Ross Parsons Centre of Commercial, Corporate and Taxation Law, this publication will be of particular interest to solicitors and barristers who represent those who bring class actions and those against whom they are brought. The publication will also interest litigation funders, academics, law reformers and others who are interested in current issues touching this lively area of litigation.