I haven't received the notice @Zboats and I have no claim or grievance against WTC, however in my experience the main reason to "opt out" of these class actions is if you intend to pursue a separate claim either alone or with others and therefore do not want to be bound by the outcome of this particular class action. These actions are often settled and there is usually a clause included that binds all parties to no further litigation, so in the event that there is a settlement or judgement and you are party to the claim, even by doing nothing, it is usually the case that you could not pursue any additional legal action because you were not satisfied with your own share of the settlement (after costs and fees).
Another reason to "opt out" might be to avoid incurring any legal costs or facing a counter-claim if the class action is unsuccessful and costs are awarded against the claimants (meaning the people bringing the claim have to pay Wisetech's legal fees in this particular class action) however this is unlikely for a number of reasons, including:
- Because costs are rarely awarded against the people bringing a class action against a listed company and/or its directors and/or its auditors unless there is clear evidence of malicious intent on behalf of those making the claims - so for example when the claims are frivolous and/or clearly without any merit; and
- Because most of the law firms that bring these class actions against ASX-listed companies have litigation funders backing them for a fee and there is insurance in place to protect ordinary retail shareholders from incurring any associated legal costs as a result of the class actions, so it's ususally a no-win-no-fee situation and in the event of a win the fees are deducted from the settlement amount, so there is never usually anything to pay by the class action participants other than what is deducted by the litigation funders and lawyers before the proceeds are dispersed to the class action participants. This is certainly the case with the well-known law firms that do this sort of thing reasonably often and have reasonably good track records of obtaining settlements in their favour. Google tells me that these are usually settled and rarely go through to a court judgement - the exception being Worley Limited (2026): In a historic landmark ruling, engineering giant Worley became the first Australian company to be found fully liable for investor losses at trial. The Federal Court found that Worley breached its continuous disclosure obligations by maintaining an overly optimistic profit forecast despite internal figures showing a multi-million dollar shortfall (source: Google AI). Most companies don't want to take that risk, so they settle beforehand.
That said, I am not a lawyer and I'm only talking from my own personal experience, but my call, if it was me, would be that I've got nothing to lose by doing nothing and remaining a participant in the claim, or by joining up as a participant if that's what they ask me to do.
I have been involved in 7 class actions so far (that I can remember tonight) and received payouts in 3 - which were not particularly material (i.e. not a lot of money, two of them were UGL & DOW, both for failure in their continuous disclosure obligations, ANZ was the other one I can remember getting a payout for but I think that was to do with them overcharging on a personal loan and/or credit cards over a period of years rather than breaking any ASX rules as I hardly ever have held ANZ shares), got nothing in 2 (RCR, Babcock and Brown), and two are still ongoing or else have stalled - they remain unresolved anyway (CuDeco is one of those). None have cost me any money. Three of them have cost me some time to provide data of my shareholdings, trading details, dates, etc. to the lawyers, but no actual money (from me) was ever asked for.
