Aggregate damages awards - the most important unused dimension of Australia's class action regimes?

Over the last few years, many dimensions of Australia’s class action regimes have been reviewed extensively by governments, law reform commissions, parliamentary committees, scholars and the media. But, surprisingly, a measure or procedure that has the potential to enhance the ability of Australian class actions to secure the policy goals of access to justice, judicial economy and deterrence has largely escaped scrutiny; this is the ability of trial judges to make aggregate damages awards. Pursuant to this procedure, a Court—that finds in favour of the claimants represented by the class representatives, the group members—determines the defendant’s monetary liability to the group members through a global assessment of the totality of the group members’ claims or through the application of a mathematical formula or methodology, rather than through an assessment of evidence or proof furnished by each of the group members entitled to monetary compensation. The main purpose of this article is to address this lacuna in the jurisprudence on Australian class actions by undertaking an extensive study of how this procedure has been utilised to date and how it can operate in the future.