![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/apshamilton/Eo8XcDGGEFyRfXQYNTDiMcFhqywhZdVCUa3dC54uroTVuFH16C4q8S7SDdG6yCqYWz2.png)


### Conclusion

141. The Respondents have utterly failed to provide any factual or legal
     basis for their interlocutory applications to stay or declass an
     important public interest class action affecting the welfare of
     millions of Australians, purportedly "in the interests
     of justice" on the basis of alleged conflicts of interest and/or
     alleged prohibited contingency fees arising from the litigation
     funding arrangements.

142. They have ignored extensive controlling High Court and Full Federal
     Court authority which creates insurmountable obstacles to their
     applications and instead cited a dubious selection of superseded,
     clearly inapplicable and plainly wrong cases, mostly first
     instance, two without a contradictor and where binding authority
     was not brought to the attention of the Court and in State rather
     than Federal Courts.

143. They have completely failed to make out any real conflict of
     interest between the Applicant and group members (or any other
     conflict of interest).

144. They have wrongly impugned the Applicant's professional experience
     and conduct.

145. They have consistently cited cases which rely on the ancient
     concepts of maintenance and champerty (especially in relation to
     alleged contingency fees) without understanding these concepts,
     their legal history and why they can never have any application to
     these proceedings.

146. They have failed to cite any authority that conflict of interest or
     contingency fees are a basis for staying or declassing proceedings
     regularly brought, let alone proceedings where the Court has
     already taken active steps to assert jurisdiction on the basis of a
     *prima facie* case and public interest.

147. They have ignored the very substantial public interest in these
     proceedings and the highly relevant binding authority of *Epic*,
     which demonstrates that such public interest provides very strong
     reasons for not staying proceedings, even when a strong basis for
     staying does actually exist.

148. They have failed to examine, as required by binding authority,
     whether their concerns (if they had any validity at all) could be
     addressed by other tools available to the Court.

149. They have engaged in less than ideal professional conduct in an
     attempt to advance entirely unmeritorious interlocutory
     applications for the improper purposes of preventing a substantive
     hearing of the Applicant's claims enforcing Part IV of the CCA and
     putting costs pressure on a self-represented applicant by inserting
     this interlocutory application prior to the hearing of the
     Applicant's interlocutory application for a No Adverse Costs Order,
     made at the earliest stage of proceedings (almost 2.5 years ago)
     and part heard.

150. The Respondents' interlocutory applications must be dismissed.

151. The Applicant requests the Court to consider appropriate measures
     to discourage the Respondents from making further unmeritorious
     interlocutory applications for improper purposes, given that the
     usual threat of adverse costs is not applicable to the Respondents
     both because the Applicant is self represented and because of the
     immense wealth of the Respondents.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Signed by the Applicant, Andrew Hamilton on 12 December 2022



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