The court's approval of the $500 million settlement provides a detailed template for the assessment of fairness and reasonableness of large-scale group proceeding settlements under s 33V of the Supreme Court Act 1986 (Vic), particularly where settlement occurs after trial but before judgment. The court confirmed that the assessment is limited to whether the settlement falls within the range of fair and reasonable outcomes, not whether it is the optimal outcome. Pro-rata distribution between insured and insurer was held to be a reasonable approach where the application of s 67 of the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth) to group proceedings is uncertain. Legal costs of approximately 12% of the settlement sum (including disbursements) were approved as reasonable in the context of a no-win no-fee arrangement for proceedings of this scale.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 67 later cases that cite this judgment.
3 of the 67 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.