The First Substantive Decision
in the BGC Class Action
A preliminary hearing was held on 26 March 2026 where BGC put forward their interpretation of ‘day’ within the contract and in particular the schedule to the contract. The schedule contains important particulars to the contract such as the site address, price, number of days to commence works and number of days to complete the works. BGC’s interpretation was that ‘days’ in the schedule meant working days.
Our argument for the BGC group members was that contrary to BGC’s interpretation the proper interpretation was to take the word at its plain and ordinary means i.e ‘days’ means calendar days.
His Honour Justice Gething agreed with our interpretation. He found that ‘day’ and ‘days’ in the Contract Schedule is a reference to ‘calendar days’ and NOT ‘working days’. He then applied this meaning to all relevant BGC contract versions.
Relevantly this means that a proper calculation of the construction delay can now occur and this leads to a proper calculation of the damages / compensation BGC group members are owed by BGC for the delayed completion of the homes.
Next steps: there is a Strategic Conference to be held on 5 June 2026 for His Honour Justice Gething and the Plaintiffs’ and Defendants’ legal representatives to identify the real issues, plan the procedural course and determine how the matter is to be run. The Strategic Conference will be live streamed from the Supreme Court of Western Australia allowing remote access to all BGC group members to view the conference.
It is further expected that Mediation will be held later this year in an effort to advance proceedings towards a resolution.
If you are not currently registered as a BGC group member, we strongly encourage you to do so. You can do this by following the links below: (These links open a new window)
1. ma.legal
2. https://portal.omnibridgeway.com/cases/electronic-agreement/Form/bgcgroup
3. https://portal.omnibridgeway.com/cases/register/bgc-class-action-overview
Update from October 2024
The Defendants requested Further and Better Particulars, which means they asked us to clarify matters arising in the Statement of Claim. We anticipated this request would occur. We answered the Defendants’ Request for Further and Better Particulars, and the Defendants have now filed their Statements of Defence, which broadly deny liability. This was not unexpected.
A Strategic Conference is listed for 19 December 2024. At this conference the Court and the parties will discuss the most the appropriate way to deal with pre-trial issues such as discovery, correspondence with the group members and mediation.
Ahead of the Strategic Conference, we will provide a questionnaire asking for specific information regarding your financial losses, the progress of your build and your interaction with your builder. This information will be used to provide a refined estimate of the group’s financial and other losses. It is important that you are as accurate as possible when providing information regarding your losses to ensure that the Court can understand the magnitude of BGC’s conduct on its customers.
