Lawyers for Amcor and Visy class action take confidence from Cadbury settlement

The lawyer running a class action against packaging giants Amcor and Visy over their involvement in a cartel, says the settlement of case involving Cadbury and the two packaging companies gives her confidence that the class action may be settled before it reaches trial.

Maurice Blackburn principal Rebecca Gilsenan says that while the Cadbury settlement does not formerly or directly have an impact on the class action, it does give her hope of a speedier resolution in the class action.

“It gives us greater confidence of the possibility of settlement in our case,” Gilsenan says.

“I would hope if there’s the possibility of a settlement it would happen before we are on the steps of the court, as happened in the Cadbury case. The longer it goes on, the more money you need to spend.”

Gilsenan and her team are in the process of filing their evidence in the case and she expects a trial may begin in the middle of next year.

Visy and Pratt were fined $36 million in 2007 over their involvement in the packaging cartel, which was estimated to have cost customers of Visy and fellow cartel member Amcor at least $700 million.

Hundreds of customers – all of whom purchased more than $100,000 worth of corrugated fibreboard packaging between 1 May 2000 and 1 May 2005 – are involved in the class action.

Cadbury decided to go it alone and last week announced it had reached an undisclosed settlement with the two companies. Cadbury had been seeking $235.8 million in damages, but it believed to have settled for a fraction of that.

Gilsenan says she was disappointed that the witnesses in the Cadbury case – many of whom are likely to appear in the class action – did not get a “trial run” in court, although she says the fact that one more case has been completed will allow all parties to focus on the class action.

“It gives me confidence that we’ll able to get finished a little earlier than expected.”