May 2008

A Class Act Can Be Hard To Follow : Recent Initiatives on "Collective Redress".

Where the US leads, Europe often follows, but not yet, at least, with class actions. There has been a great deal of legal discussion in Europe on the subject of class actions and collective redress. Collective redress enshrines the process whereby large groups of claimants band together to seek redress as a large group.

In the US, there have been numerous class actions brought against global companies with attempts by the US Claimant Bar to bring the actions on bahalf of shareholders based in Europe. Not many of these attempts have been successful, but what these attempts highlight is the difficulty for European claimants with legitimate claims to benefit from global settlements with defendant companies. 

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