Third Annual Conference on Global Class Actions (2009)

Third Annual Conference on Global Class Actions 
Sydney and Canberra, 11-12 December 2009

SUMMARY

Following up on the 2007 Global Class Action conference co-sponsored by Stanford Law School and the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and a smaller workshop held at Oxford in December 2008 that brought together some of those who participated in the 2007 conference, Profs. George Barker and Peta Spender, of Australian National University and Prof. Peter Cashman of Sydney University organized a conference at which speakers reviewed the status of class actions in their respective countries and discussed ongoing and proposed research. The Sydney/Canberra conference focused especially on third-party financing for class and group actions, an issue which has attracted increasing attention worldwide since the 2007 conference. The countries represented at the conference included Australia and New Zealand, England and the Netherlands, and Canada and the United States. No representatives from elsewhere in Asia or Europe or from Latin America were able to attend the Sydney/Canberra conference, but papers reporting new developments in those parts of the world have been posted on the Stanford Global Class Actions website. Slides and other materials shared at the conference will be posted on the website as they become available. Discussions are underway about follow-up conferences in 2010 and 2011 and information will be posted on the website as it becomes available.