On 24 July 2014, the Australian Centre for Private Law at the TC Beirne School of Law, in co-operation with the Bar Association of Queensland, held a one-day symposium to commemorate 50 years since the land-mark decision of the House of Lords in Hedley Byrne v Heller on liability for negligent misstatement and pure economic loss.
The aim of the symposium was to highlight and to attempt to resolve some contemporary legal issues relating to misstatement liabilities and the actionability of pure economic losses in modern private law. To this end leading academic contributors, practitioners and members of the judiciary explored the historical and conceptual foundation of the decision, its reception into Australian law the current state of the law from a variety of perspectives (historical, doctrinal, comparative and theoretical) and examine the way in which such liabilities are now spread across different spheres of law – common law, equity and statute (in particular, the Australian Consumer Law).
The symposium featured papers presented by leading experts in this field, including Professor Jane Stapleton (ANU); Professor Andrew Robertson (Melbourne); Professor Paul Finn (Melbourne); Dr Sirko Harder (Monash); Dr Jeannie Patterson (Melbourne); and Associate Professor Warren Swain (UQ). The papers, together with a number of additional essays by overseas commentators, will be published in early 2015 by Hart Publishing.
