Exemptions for litigation funding schemes
The Law Council welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Treasury regarding the Exposure Draft of the Corporations Amendment (Litigation Funding) Regulations 2022 (Cth) (Draft Regulations), which seek to alter the regulation of litigation funding schemes pursuant to the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (Corporations Act).
The Law Council is grateful for the assistance of the Class Actions Committee of the Law Council’s Federal Litigation and Dispute Resolution Section, the Financial Services Committee of the Law Council’s Business Law Section, the Law Society of New South Wales, the Law Society of South Australia (LSSA) and the Law Society of Western Australia in the preparation of this submission.
As set out in the Exposure Draft Explanatory Statement, the purpose of the Draft Regulations is to amend the Corporations Regulations 2001 (Cth) to provide litigation funding schemes with an explicit exemption from the Corporations Act’s: managed investment scheme (MIS) regime; Australian financial services licence (AFSL) requirements; product disclosure regime; and anti-hawking provisions (for instance, relating to unsolicited sales of financial products).