Consumer Collective Redress: Comments of EESC

The European Economic and Social Committee has published an interesting opinion on the Commission's Green Paper on Consumer Collective Redress (or class actions, to call it by another name).

For a brief explanation of what a Green Paper is, see here, and here's a list of all the Green Papers published to date.

The opinion supports the idea that collective redress should be introduced into EU legislation by means of a directive.

On the other hand, the EESC wishes to avoid the introduction of US-style class actions and states:

"Any EU legal measure adopted should reflect European cultural and legal traditions, have compensation as its only goal and establish a fair balance between parties leading to a system that safeguards the interests of society as a whole. The Com­mittee fully supports the Commission’s suggestion that whichever measure is adopted to institute a judicial collec­tive redress mechanism in all Member States ‘should avoid elements which are said to encourage a litigation culture such as is said to exist in some non-European countries, such as punitive damages, contingency fees and other elements’.

Also the EESC prefers an opt-in system to collective action to an opt-out system.

The opinion makes interesting reading and contains a wealth of references on EU consumer law.

Meanwhile, the Commission's work on collective redress and damages for antitrust violations is not progressing much. You can find documents on that here and the EESC's opinion of 2006 here.

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