Originally from Collective Litigation in Europe: Law and Practice – Preview Page

Collective Litigation in Europe: Law and Practice aims to be a neutral description of the law and experience of collective litigation in 33 European jurisdictions including each of the 27 EU Member States, the four EFTA States, and the two most active jurisdictions in the United Kingdom (England & Wales and Scotland).  
Our inspiration for this project has been the enormous body of work generated by academics and practitioners and by or for the European Commission over the course of many years leading to the Commission’s 2013 Recommendation1 and ultimately to the Representative Actions Directive2 (the RAD) and the national transposition laws of (nearly all) 27 Member States. We expanded the project to include all forms of national collective litigation available in all the EU Member States, the EFTA States, and the UK in addition to the consumer collective litigation addressed by the RAD. 
We therefore begin in Part I with a chapter on the evolution of collective redress in the European Union, including a history of the development of EU policy on collective redress culminating in adoption of the RAD and a review of major issues in debates on collective redress in Europe. We then move to an assessment of the RAD, viewed as a seismic shift in European civil justice systems, analyze its key provisions, and make some predictions about the future of collective litigation in Europe.  
In Part II authors from each of the 27 Member States describe national legislation, procedural approaches to collective litigation, and significant national cases. Major topics include jurisdiction, standing, notice, rights to be heard, case management, early dismissal of manifestly unfounded cases, admissibility (certification), choice of law, parallel litigation, multijurisdictional issues, rights of defense, recognition and enforcement of judgments, settlement, and funding and other financial incentives where applicable.