Collective Redress and Private International Law in the EU

This book specifically covers issues regarding jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in cross-border mass disputes relating to financial services. Collective redress mechanisms, legal mechanisms which can be used to resolve mass disputes collectively, are growing more important. Due to the global increase in cross-border trade and financial transactions, the number of cross-border mass disputes has increased.

In the EU, several prototypes of collective redress mechanism exist that can be used to resolve mass disputes and, aside from the EU’s recommendation on the drafting of laws relating to collective redress, a reevaluation of the Brussels Regulation has also taken place as on 10 January 2015 the Brussels I-bis Regulation replaced the old Brussels Regulation dating from 2000.

In spite of a minor reference to collective redress in the Commission proposal, Brussels I-bis does not contain any provision relating to collective redress. As a result, many questions regarding cross-border mass disputes and the relevant private international law issues remain unanswered and unresolved. This book sets out to describe the most important prototypes by referring to actual collective redress mechanisms.

In addition, it also sets out how parties to such mass disputes can confer jurisdiction to courts in the EU and what the various pitfalls are. Moreover, the rules concerning the recognition and enforcement of judgments originating from a collective procedure are listed. As cross-border collective redress mechanisms and the rules of private international law to be used in such a context are still being developed, the goals of private international law and the goals of the referred collective redress mechanisms are analysed to provide an insight into how these sets of rules should and could be employed.

This book is primarily aimed at researchers, practitioners and lawmakers actively involved in and/or professionally interested in the field of private international law and collective redress mechanisms and should prove very useful in providing them with a greater in-depth understanding of the issues at hand.

Thijs Bosters is a law clerk at the Dutch Supreme Court. Prior to his work at the Supreme Court, he was an attorney-at-law with NautaDutilh in The Netherlands, where he worked in the Litigation & Arbitration department.

Specific to this book:

• Gives an extensive overview of private international law and class action-style proceedings in the EU
• Sets out the aims of the Brussels Regulation and the aims of various collective redress mechanisms to demonstrate in an often practical manner how these sets of rules should and/or could be employed
• Provides ideas for legislators regarding new rules by which to regulate the field of cross-border mass disputes

Excerpts from a book review:

The book will be of interest for academics, practitioners and policymakers wishing to navigate the complex relationships between collective redress and private international law. It reviews the different goals respectively pursued by collective redress mechanisms (e.g., ensuring effective legal protection, reducing administrative burden for the judiciary, etc.) and those pursued by the Brussels Regulation (e.g., ensuring legal certainty, vindicating before the appropriate court, ensuring free movement of judgments, etc.). It highlights a mismatch between these goals, which can be explained by the fact that the Brussels Regulation was mainly built on the traditional two-party model and not for cases involving several defendants and/or claimants.

To cope with mass claims, the book notably recommends adding a new ground of jurisdiction in the Brussels Regulation based on the domicile of the injured parties. In particular, a suggestion is made to confer jurisdiction on the court where the largest group of claimants is domiciled or where the organization representing the interests of the claimants is located. While recognizing the limits of this recommendation (what to do, for instance, when groups of claimants with similar sizes are spread over several Member States?), the book considers that this option can reconcile (partly, at least) the goals of collective redress and those of the Brussels Regulation.

- Alexandre Biard, Book Review in 55, Common Market Law Review, Issue 6, pp. 2010-2011. For the full review, see: https://kluwerlawonline.com/journalarticle/Common+Market+Law+Review/55.6/COLA2018163