Corporate immunity from investor litigation

In 2024 Australia’s Federal Government introduced legislation to make large private and public corporations, superannuation funds and asset managers immune from private litigation on climate change transition plans and other disclosures for three years. The immunity was to accompany new, economy-wide climate related financial disclosures.

Before the immunity proposal was debated in the Senate, Equity Generation Lawyers published a paper Australia’s energy transition market faces imminent integrity risks (August 2024).

The paper outlines why the immunity undermines the new disclosure regime and represents unparalleled, and unjustified, corporate overreach on an international scale.

Investors, particularly international investors, will be put at risk by the proposal which serves to make Australia an international pariah by way of a perverse market signal that will eliminate the ability for investors to challenge company transition plans.