Shine Lawyers keeps AMP class action funding under wraps

Shine Lawyers has refused to detail funding arrangements for its class action suit against AMP amid law firm bidding war.

AMP chief executive Mike Wilkins. Picture: Britta Campion

Brisbane-based class action specialist Shine Lawyers has refused to detail funding arrangement for a suit against scandal-hit wealth group AMP.

Shine Lawyers are one of five competing law firms looking to take on AMP (AMP) over the disclosure of its fees-for-no-service saga, in which the royal commission heard the company had misled the corporate regulator 20 times in regards to its behaviour.

Cutthroat competition among ­lawyers pitching shareholder class actions against AMP have already set a new low benchmark for how much litigation funders claim in commissions.

But Shine has refused to share the details of its funding arrangements with litigation funder Augusta Ventures after filing its lawsuit in the Federal Court on Friday.

“Unfortunately we’re only sharing those details with applicants,” a spokeswoman for Shine said. “We will only say ‘we believe we are offering the most competitive terms for shareholders.”

Slater & Gordon has offered a 10 per cent commission rate. It matches the offer made by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. But Slater & Gordon said the package offered by its funder, Therium, was better because its commission would be based on the net amount reaped by clients after legal fees are paid.

However, Quinn Emanuel has claimed the rate charged by its funder, London-listed Burford Capital, is also calculated on a net basis.

Quinn Emanuel, should it be successful, has pledged to forgo its right to charge an uplift to its fees, which courts allow to reach as much as 25 per cent.

Two of the five law firms circling AMP — Shine Lawyers and Phi Finney McDonald — have yet to tip their hand by announcing proposed commission rates.

Maurice Blackburn has the highest rate, at 12.5 per cent.

The spoils available are also potentially very large, with lawyers tipping any eventual payout or settlement would likely exceed the $200 million pool in Australia’s biggest shareholder class action to date, the Centro case in 2012. Quinn Emanuel was first to the courtroom door, filing its lawsuit in the NSW Supreme Court last Wednesday.

The class actions revolve around AMP’s failure to tell the market it had repeatedly misled the corporate regulator about a scandal in which it deliberately charged customers fees for services they did not receive.

Last month, AMP saw its share price shredded after its head of financial advice, Jack Regan, admitted the misconduct to the banking royal commission.