The Court held that a corporate financial planning practice was a group member of a settled class action despite no signed Authorised Representative Agreement being located, finding contract formation could be inferred from the parties' course of dealing, ASIC registration, and subsequent conduct over nearly two decades. On the critical question of whether the settlement deed's broadly worded releases barred the group member's cross-claim alleging unconscionable procurement of releases and restraints in its individual buyback deed, the Court held they did not: applying Timbercorp and Dyczynski, the representative applicant's authority extended only to common claims, and the unconscionability allegations — turning on individual dealings, personal circumstances, and specific conduct between AMPFP and the defendants — were individual or idiosyncratic claims that fell outside that authority regardless of the literal breadth of the release language. The Court also held that neither Anshun estoppel nor abuse of process precluded the cross-claim, as group members had no obligation to raise individual issues in the class action and their failure to opt out did not constitute an abuse.
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