Ann: Litigation Update, page-30

Good question.

There are laws and curial regulations directed against frivolous and vexatious lawsuits. Courts take a dim view of this misuse (or outright abuse) of the court system, which is already overworked in most States and even the territories.

But there are riskier things for practitioners to do. For example, a court might say - if it appeared to the court that costs have been incurred by the serious neglect, serious incompetence or serious misconduct of a legal firm promoting a class action - that the firm couldnt charge the clients in connection with the matter. Similarly, a court might find the law firm acted improperly, or without reasonable prospects of success.

Here's an informative link to the NSW Law Society's current advice recovering costs from such a law firm i.e. one that improperly promotes claims against an ASX-listed corporation like Mesoblast Ltd: https://www.lawsociety.com.au/sites/default/files/2018-03/Ch%206.pdf

But IMO these points will almost never be discussed at the bar table, because the lawyers will have the matter settled prematurely and the corporation's public liability insurer will pick up the bill without any admission of any kind by either party or any determination of liability, as actually happened with Mesoblast Ltd and a group of ADR holders in the US recently.

And that's why we pay insurance premiums. Not a problem. Not even news, actually, because the existence of possible claims of this kind has been publicly aired - mischieviously or otherwise - since 2020.

Still, excuse me while I laugh at posters e.g. @@whytee or @DocMcstuffins who now have to furiously reinvent themselves as legal process experts in a stock they don't hold to 'save the mums and dads' , in addition to their other 'chores' day-in and day-out being self-appointed resident medical experts on the Mesoblast thread. Looking back, I can see that neither of these posters have shown any real or factual knowledge of Mesoblast's confidential dealings. It seems that won't stop them constantly finding & posting an arguable downside risk/ cost/ liability in the management, the operations, the science, the intellectual property etc each & every day.

You have to wonder why, eh.

Just kidding.