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Tuil, Mark; Visscher, Louis --- "New Trends in Financing Civil Litigation in Europe: Lessons to be Learned" [2010] ELECD 857; in Tuil, Mark; Visscher, Louis (eds), "New Trends in Financing Civil Litigation in Europe" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: New Trends in Financing Civil Litigation in Europe

Editor(s): Tuil, Mark; Visscher, Louis

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446854

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: New Trends in Financing Civil Litigation in Europe: Lessons to be Learned

Author(s): Tuil, Mark; Visscher, Louis

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

9. New trends in financing civil
litigation in Europe: lessons to be
learned
Mark Tuil and Louis Visscher

1. INTRODUCTION1

Civil litigation serves a multitude of goals, many of which were explicitly
touched upon in the previous chapters. Civil litigation in the first instance
is a way of resolving conflicts. Depending on the type of conflict at hand,
the plaintiff for example may want the court to issue a declaration regard-
ing the unlawfulness of the defendant's behaviour, or he may want the
defendant to restore the status quo ante, to refrain from further infringe-
ments, to perform his contractual duties, to compensate his losses, or to
restitute illegitimate benefits. In essence, civil litigation is a way to realise
rights and entitlements, without having to resort to vigilantism.
In addition, civil litigation is a driving force behind legal development.
The continuous flow of cases forces (or maybe better: enables) courts
to find new solutions for existing problems. An ever-changing society
is confronted with conflicts which legislators cannot all foresee ex ante.
However, the ex post character of civil litigation enables courts to seek
solutions to the arisen issues.
Furthermore, even though the conflict-resolving goal of civil litigation
in essence is retrospective to the conflict at hand, the legal norms which
are created by the courts in deciding the cases may very well have an ex
ante impact on the parties involved in the conflict, as well as on other
actors. Put differently, civil litigation may also serve ...


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