Stadler, Astrid --- "Cross-border Mass Litigation: A Particular Challenge for European Law" [2011] ELECD 625; in Steele, Jenny; van Boom, H. Willem (eds), "Mass Justice" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Mass Justice

Editor(s): Steele, Jenny; van Boom, H. Willem

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849805063

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Cross-border Mass Litigation: A Particular Challenge for European Law

Author(s): Stadler, Astrid

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

4. Cross-border mass litigation: a
particular challenge for European
law
Astrid Stadler

1. SITUATION OF MASS LITIGATION IN EUROPE

Europe faces a complex situation in terms of collective redress. Certain
Member States ­ particularly Sweden, Finland, and Denmark1 ­ have
reformed their traditional system of collective redress in recent years,
adopting different types of group action models. Others, such as Germany,
still feel highly suspicious of "class actions", and favour representative
actions or model case proceedings, while a large number of Member
States have done nothing at all to improve collective redress.2 On the
European level, DG Competition published a White Paper3 on the private
enforcement of antitrust law, which favours a combination of opt-out
representative actions brought by qualified entities and private opt-in
collective actions.4 The initiative started by DG Health and Consumer
Protection remains in the stage of a 2008 Green Paper discussing several
options including opt-in group actions for consumer collective redress.5
All in all, it seems likely that a group action will be proposed by the new
Commission in 2010 for the private enforcement of competition law, and
at least for cross-border consumer cases.
Among the many types of actions falling in the category of collective
redress,6 this chapter deals only with group or class actions for damages.
Model case proceedings and representative actions (e.g. by consumer
organisations) raise different questions in the cross-border context. The
same is true for actions directed to obtain a court injunction ...