The European Commission is relaunching the debate about class action suits (also called collective redress) for faulty product in the European Union with the objective of developing common standards across the 27 member countries. Three EU commissioners, justice commissioner Viviane Reding, competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia and consumer commissioner John Dalli, have drafted a paper on the subject and will be launching public consultations in November.
The Financial TImes has today revealed some of the issues covered in the briefing paper, including making class actions cheaper than individual claims, financing class action suits, consensual resolutions through mediation, enforcing judgements throughout the EU, and avoiding abusive litigation.
A previous attempt to introduce EU-wide rules failed due to strong lobbying by business groups worried about potential costs.
As with other EU countries, current legislation in Ireland makes it very difficult to pursue class action suits.