The Court refused the defendants' application for soft class closure orders combining opt-out and registration notices in two related group proceedings involving approximately 519,900 and 163,890 group members respectively. Osborne J held that at the early stage of proceedings (pleadings not closed, no discovery, no trial date), a registration regime would likely produce an artificially low participation rate that would impede the plaintiffs' solicitors in properly discharging their duties to group members as a whole, and that the significant costs of registration ($1.85–$2.47 million versus $109,000–$203,000 for opt-out alone) were not justified absent any settlement offer. The Court emphasised that the inherent advantage to defendants in minimising group member participation through early class closure must be weighed against the protective role of the court in open class proceedings, and that sophisticated parties can make reasonable estimates of participation rates and quantum without registration data.
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