G&E’s institutional investor clients scored an important victory in the global securities fraud class action against BHP Billiton. Having won on the inclusion of non-resident claimants in the class at the trial level and on appeal, the victory in Australia’s Supreme Court marks the claimants’ third successive win. A global class that extends to non-residents raises no issues of extraterritoriality, the Court held, where jurisdiction hinges on a local defendant’s domicile, rather than the residency of the claimants, and claims are brought under Australian law, in Australian court, governed by Australian procedure. As a matter of Australian law, a class action judgment binds the class; whether it is recognized as binding in other jurisdictions is a matter of foreign law, on which Australia’s class action statute does not purport to have any say.

The case is BHP Group Ltd. v. Impiombato [2022] HCA 33 (Oct. 12, 2022). G&E’s international securities litigation team members, Olav Haazen, Jonathan Davenport, and Alice Cho Lee, all contributed to successfully defeating the appeal.