Susan Goodman

Expertise

Susan has over 20 years’ experience in advising and representing individuals, companies, government departments and professional services firms in a wide range of commercial disputes. She specialises in large complex commercial litigation and alternative dispute resolution, including class actions. 

Susan has, over many years, acted in litigation for government departments, including Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Department of Home Affairs, and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). This work has included regulatory matters and investigations, judicial review and tort matters including claims for misfeasance in public office and defamation.

She has acted for both plaintiffs and defendants in large class actions. This has included developing claims, book building, and obtaining funding all the way through to settling claims with Court approval. As a result of this experience Susan assists her clients with unique insights gained from acting on both sides of the record. 

Susan also has extensive experience acting for professional services firms and for and against insolvency practitioners, including liquidators and receivers, in complex litigation arising out of some of the largest corporate failures in Australia. 

The matters which Susan regularly runs include complex trust issues, misleading and deceptive conduct, breaches of the Corporations Act and the ASIC Act, breach of director’s duties, auditor’s negligence, breach of contract and various torts including negligence and misfeasance in public office.

As well as contested litigation, Susan is experienced in seeking judicial advice and court approval for actions by insolvency practitioners and in relation to settlement of proceedings. Susan also regularly acts in liquidator’s examinations, both for liquidators and for examinees and has significant experience acting for various parties in proceedings seeking court approval for schemes of arrangement.

Susan has expertise in managing large databases of documents including the use of technology assisted review for the production of documents. She is also skilled in preparing lay and expert evidence (including briefing and working with experts) covering a very wide range of areas as well as having extensive experience in running interlocutory and final hearings and appeals.

Experience

Susan’s recent experience includes:

• acting for SBS in a claim brought against it by Alan Jones, for defamation
• acting for Miranda Devine in a claim brought against her and Nationwide News Limited for defamation
• advising and acting for many individuals and organizations concerning claims for defamation and injurious falsehood
• assisting ASIC in multiple large investigations arising out of the Royal Commission into Financial Services
• defending a multimillion-dollar claim for misfeasance in public office, brought against officers of ASIC for cancellation by it of an Australian Financial Services Licence in the Supreme Court of New South Wales
• defending officers of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in a claim in the Federal Court for misfeasance in public office
• defending the Sydney Motorway Corporation in a claim relating to the compulsory acquisition of land brought by Desane Properties Pty Ltd.
• acting in ASIC investigations, including one concerning whether a company’s website was misleading and another concerning whether an application for an Australian Financial Services Licence was misleading
• acting for the liquidators of Equititrust Limited (a failed managed investments scheme) in proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against the former directors and auditors of Equititrust, including settling the proceedings and obtaining Court approval for the settlement
• successfully defending a claim brought by the liquidator of Tamaya Resources Limited against a major accounting firm for auditor’s negligence and misleading and deceptive conduct in the Federal Court of Australia
• acting in and settling a class action brought by shareholders of Tamaya Resources Limited against a major accounting firm, including in the opt out and settlement approval process
• acting for a major accounting firm in multiple liquidators’ examinations, including brought by the liquidator of the Hastie Group
• defending a company in a claim for oppression brought by one of its shareholders.