EJF issues the second Monitoring Report on Collective Redress Regulation in Europe

In February 2021, EJF published its first “Monitoring report on Collective Redress Regulation” which provided a comparative overview of collective redress mechanisms in 14 European countries and the impact the transposition of the Directive on Representative Actions might have on those.

EJF has now launched its second “Monitoring Report on Collective Redress Regulation” in March 2022, which aims to provide an updated analysis of the current state of play of collective redress mechanisms throughout those 14 European countries and how they are proceeding with the transposition of the Directive into national law, which has to be done before 1^st of January 2023.

The new report covers the different transposition timelines of the Directive and observes the potential influencing factors that are causing the lack of priority in government’s agendas to implement the Directive. Overall, two different waves of transposition are identified: countries more advanced in the process and others than, for the reasons found by the report, are lagging behind. In addition, it analyses the key challenges that these European countries are facing throughout the implementation and the diverse political approaches that each jurisdiction is choosing to overcome them.

A specific analysis on the role of digitalisation, scope of redress areas and private funding is included in the study, which helps understanding the bigger picture of collective redress in Europe. Furthermore, the report shows the main developments concerning collective redress legislation and case-law in the each one of the covered jurisdictions. Moreover, the report takes a closer look at the phenomenon of third-party litigation funding which is a growing practice and is differently approached in European countries.

Finally, this analysis permitted to find potential risks and opportunities and pinpoint the best practices and learnings gathered from each country. With all the gathered insights, the report provides a final outlook and exposes emerging trends in collective redress, which can be used by legal experts, risk managers, politicians and any other individual or organisation interested in understanding the different European civil justice systems. It ultimately contributes to EJF's vision in building more efficient, effective and fair civil justice systems in Europe.