SLATER & Gordon has filed a follow-up case in its long-running shareholder class action against the Centro property group.

The latest class action is limited to a subset of investors who acquired Centro shares after PricewaterhouseCoopers, the company's former auditor, began working for the property group in the latter part of 2007.

The case filed yesterday was necessitated by a decision handed down last month by Federal Court judge Donnell Ryan, who ruled that every potential claimant in a class action must have a claim against every defendant in the case.

Advertisement: Story continues below Slater & Gordon and Maurice Blackburn are running parallel class actions on behalf of Centro investors in the Federal Court.

The cases are set down for a trial before Justice John Middleton, beginning on August 22 next year.

Justice Ryan was following a decision of 10 years ago when the Full Court was considering the position of plaintiffs in a class action brought against tobacco products manufacturer Philip Morris.

Although other Federal Court judges have challenged whether the all-on-all approach is correct, Justice Ryan's decision meant the entire list of Slater & Gordon's clients who are suing the Centro companies couldn't also sue PricewaterhouseCoopers.

That is because some of the Slater & Gordon clients bought their shares before PricewaterhouseCoopers became involved with Centro. Slater & Gordon has also signalled to the court that it may seek leave to amend its original statement of claim against the Centro companies so that it traverses a shorter period of alleged wrongdoing.

The current case covers the period from April 5, 2007, to February 28, 2008, but a future amendment is likely to bring the starting date to mid-July 2007.

Slater & Gordon's class action is being funded by Comprehensive Legal Funding; Maurice Blackburn's case is funded by IMF Ltd.