New Zealand has been experiencing an increase in class actions taking place with at least 10 filings in the past year. It is also worth noting that Australia has seen more than $1 billion in settlement dollars, and at least 33 new class actions were filed in the past year. This is a big increase from previous years and they also seem to slowly adopting the U.S. style class action. Recently, litigation funders have made a presence in the NZ market. They have also received more activity with shareholders seeking recoveries for alleged fraudulent activities in the “Bank Fees” litigation suit. Judges have been receptive to group actions like this, and the court will most likely create more defined procedures for enabling a class action suit.

Already, two household names in NZ, Pizza Hut and Billabong, have both been defendants in class action cases. It is expected that we will see an increase in shareholder class actions rather than consumer actions because of the laws and regulations that already exist in NZ. One of them is the Health and Safety Reform Bill, which will address the health and safety of workers with resulting litigation under the Bill’s terms, rather than class actions. It will be interesting to see if class actions continue to prevail and what steps NZ takes to introduce them.

Read more about the class action landscape in New Zealand here.

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