{"id":31880,"date":"2025-03-18T02:25:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T02:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=31880"},"modified":"2025-03-18T02:25:38","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T02:25:38","slug":"nsw-government-to-crack-down-on-practice-of-claim-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/03\/18\/nsw-government-to-crack-down-on-practice-of-claim-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"NSW Government to crack down on practice of \u2018claim farming\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The NSW Government will crack down on the predatory practice of \u2018claim farming\u2019 where vulnerable people are pressured to lodge compensation claims.Claim farmers often use unethical and high-pressure tactics to target those such as child abuse victim-survivors.&nbsp;The NSW Government is introducing the&nbsp;<em>Claim Farming Practices Prohibition Bill 2025,<\/em>&nbsp;to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>prohibit a person from contacting another person to solicit them to make a relevant claim<\/li><li>prohibit a person from buying or selling a relevant claim referral<\/li><li>prevent lawyers who are convicted of these offences from charging legal costs in relation to the claim, and to require them to refund any costs already received.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;Claim farmers may obtain someone\u2019s personal information without consent to make unsolicited contact and use high-pressure tactics such as harassment and intimidation.&nbsp;The practices used by claim farmers can cause distress to victim-survivors who are pressured to lodge civil compensation claims.&nbsp;Claim farmers charge referral fees to \u2018sell\u2019 the claim to a legal practice or another claim farming organisation.&nbsp;They often make promises about legal entitlements that may not be correct or in the claimant\u2019s best interests.&nbsp;The bill will prohibit claim farming for personal injury claims under the&nbsp;<em>Civil Liability Act 2002<\/em>&nbsp;and arising from intentional torts (intentional acts that result in injury or death).&nbsp;The&nbsp;<em>Civil Liability Act 2002<\/em>&nbsp;applies to many types of claims, including serious injury, medical negligence, and public and product liability.&nbsp;Intentional torts cover acts such as child abuse, assault and deprivation of liberty.&nbsp;Existing offences such as fraud will still apply in addition to the claim farming bill. Dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception currently carries a maximum penalty of 10 years\u2019 imprisonment.&nbsp;Prohibiting claim farming will not prevent abuse victims from bringing a claim for compensation, which can be done by contacting a lawyer directly.&nbsp;<strong>Attorney General Michael Daley said:<\/strong>&nbsp;\u201cIt\u2019s abhorrent that individuals and organisations are seeking to profit off vulnerable people such as victim-survivors of child sexual abuse.&nbsp;\u201cThe NSW Government is listening to advocates who have called for a ban on this predatory and exploitative practice that worsens the trauma experienced by victim-survivors.&nbsp;\u201cWe have carefully consulted with the community and are moving to stop the harm inflicted by this egregious behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NSW Government will crack down on the predatory practice of \u2018claim farming\u2019 where vulnerable people are pressured to lodge compensation claims.Claim farmers often use unethical and high-pressure tactics to target those such as child abuse victim-survivors.&nbsp;The NSW Government is introducing the&nbsp;Claim Farming Practices Prohibition Bill 2025,&nbsp;to: prohibit a person from contacting another person to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/03\/18\/nsw-government-to-crack-down-on-practice-of-claim-farming\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;NSW Government to crack down on practice of \u2018claim farming\u2019&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31881,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31880\/revisions\/31881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}