Biography

Dr Michael Duffy is an Associate Professor and director of the Corporate Law, Organisation and Litigation Research Group (CLOL) in the Department of Business Law and Taxation. 

Michael publishes extensively in peer reviewed journals on ASIC law, company and shareholder law, legal liability, major dispute resolution, class actions and access to civil justice. He has expertise in financial services regulation, insolvency and fintech including regulation of quasi (or actual) financial products such as litigation funding and digital currency.  He has an interest in institutional economics and private and public social organisation and governance and the interplay of the two; the latter extending into public constitutionalism and law (having made scholarly contributions to the Australian republic debate and questions of Australian constitutional law including protection of property rights, the nature of judicial power and their relationship with litigation). 

Michael is current President of the Society of Corporate Law Academics (SCoLA) representing corporate law academics in Australia, NZ and Asia Pacific. He is a lawyer and, before joining Monash, was a Solicitor and Senior Associate at two respected mid tier commercial law firms and a respected plaintiff firm as well as a Senior Lawyer with ASIC. He spent ten years in general commercial litigation and insolvency acting for plaintiffs and defendants then four years as a plaintiff lawyer working on Australia's first major successful shareholder and investor class actions (King v GIO and Spangaro v Australian Cotton Project). At ASIC he was a Senior Lawyer in Enforcement working on corporate investigation and liquidation, continuous disclosure, insider trading, managed investment schemes and financial services. 

He was accredited by the Law Institute of Victoria as a commercial litigation specialist from 1997 through 2007.

Michael's research on loss causation was cited by the Federal Court in the landmark judgment of Beach J in Australia's first shareholder class action trial decision (TPT Patrol v Myer), he has been cited in amicus curiae briefs to the US Supreme Court (Morrison v NAB) and by the New Zealand High Court (Ross v Southern Response).  He has made law reform submissions in the areas of shareholder claims against insolvent companies, corporate disclosure and financial reporting, proportionate liability, corporate whistleblowing, digital platforms, cryptocurrency regulation and to the 2018 Banking and Financial Services Royal Commission. His 2017 submission to the Victorian Law Reform Commission on litigation funding in class actions and insolvency administrations was extensively cited and and he was on the Roundtable.  He has also submitted to, appeared before and been cited by the Australian Law Reform Commission in their inquiry into this area and in 2020 was invited to submit to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Joint Committee and Senate enquiries into this area and was cited. He gave expert evidence before the Senate References Committee on these issues in 2021.

He was a member of the Victorian Justice Department working party on offers of compromise and has consulted to the private sector on managed investment schemes, representative proceedings, defensive class actions, measuring access to justice, takeover law and public interest relief in shareholder class actions.

Michael holds bachelor degrees in Law and Commerce from the University of Melbourne (the latter majoring in economics and economic history). His 2005 Masters in Law thesis focused on stakeholder ownership in corporations.  In 2017 Michael was awarded a PhD by Monash for his thesis examining the extent to which private securities class actions can provide investor protection from poor securities disclosure, including a comparison with ASIC enforcement in the area.  

Michael currently teaches insolvency law and has taught corporations, corporate governance, commercial and competition law at graduate and undergraduate levels.