World Class Actions

Class action and other group litigation procedures are increasingly being adopted in jurisdictions throughout the world, as more countries deal with the realities of increased globalization and access to information. As a result, attorneys and their clients face the ever-expanding prospect of a class or group action outside their home jurisdictions. World Class Actions: A Guide to Group and Representative Actions around the Globe is a guide for attorneys and their clients on the procedures available for class, group, and representative actions throughout the world. It helps lawyers navigate and develop strategies for litigation and risk management in the course of doing business abroad, or even in doing business locally in a way that impacts interests abroad. Part I of the book provides a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction survey of the class action, group, collective, derivative, and other representative action procedures available across the globe. Each chapter is written from a local perspective, by an attorney familiar with the laws, best practices, legal climate, and culture of the jurisdiction. Part II provides guidance from the perspective of international attorneys practicing in foreign jurisdictions and the art of counseling and representing clients in international litigation. It also covers a variety of topics related to transnational, multi-jurisdictional, and class or collective actions that involve international issues and interests. Each chapter offers practice tips and cultural insights helpful to an attorney or litigant facing a dispute in a particular part of the world. Many of the chapters introduce key books, treatises, articles, or other reference materials to foster further research. Its focus on international class and group litigation law from a practitioner's perspective makes World Class Actions an essential guide for the lawyer or client.

Economic activity is more globally integrated than ever before, but so is the scope of corporate misconduct. As more and more people across the world are affected by such malfeasance, the differences in legal redress have become increasingly visible. This transparency has resulted in a growing convergence towards an American model of robust private enforcement of the law, including the class-action lawsuit. This handbook brings together scholars from nearly two dozen countries to describe and assess the class-action procedure (or its equivalent) in their respective countries and, where possible, to offer empirical data on these systems. At the same time, the work presents a variety of multidisciplinary perspectives on class actions, from economics to philosophy, making this handbook an essential resource to academics, lawyers, and policymakers alike.

Whatever deficits remain in the Canadian project to make justice available to all, class actions have been heralded as a success. They have been employed over the past twenty-five years to overcome barriers to justice for those who would otherwise have no recourse to the courts. First proposing a conceptualization of access to justice that moves beyond mere access to a court procedure, leading expert Jasminka Kalajdzic then methodically assesses survey data and case studies to determine how class action practice fulfills or falls short of its objectives. Class Actions in Canada is a timely exploration of the evolution of collective litigation in Canada.

Complete with a state-by-state analysis of the ways in which the class action rules differ from the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, this comprehensive guide provides practitioners with an understanding of the intricacies of a class action lawsuit. Multiple authors contributed to the book, mainly 12 top litigators at the premiere law firm of Fulbright and Jaworski, L.L.P.

Not so long ago, class actions were considered to be a textbook example of American exceptionalism; many of their main features were assumed to be incompatible with the culture of the civil law world. However, the tide is changing; while there are now trends in the USA toward limiting or excluding class actions, notorious cases like Dieselgate are moving more and more European jurisdictions to extend the reach of their judicial collective redress mechanisms. For many new fans of class actions, collective redress has become a Holy Grail of sorts, a miraculous tool that will rejuvenate national systems of civil justice and grant them unprecedented power. Still, while the introduction of various forms of representative action has virtually become a fashion, it is anything but certain that attempting to transplant American-style class action will be successful. European judicial structures and legal culture(s) are fundamentally different, which poses a considerable challenge. This book investigates whether class actions in Europe are indeed a Holy Grail or just another wrong turn in the continuing pursuit of just and effective means of protecting the rights of citizens and businesses. It presents both positive and critical perspectives, supplemented by case studies on the latest collectivization trends in Europe’s national civil justice systems. The book also shares the experiences of some non-European jurisdictions that have developed promising hybrid forms of collective redress, such as Canada, Brazil, China, and South Africa. In closing, a selection of topical international cases that raise interesting issues regarding the effectiveness of class actions in an international context are studied and discussed.

Class actions in privacy law are rapidly growing as a legal vehicle for citizens around the world to hold corporations liable for privacy violations. Current and future developments in these class actions stand to shift the corporate liability landscape for companies that interact with people’s personal information. Privacy class actions are at the intersection of civil litigation, privacy law, and data protection. Developments in privacy class actions raise complex issues of substantive law as well as challenges to the established procedures governing class action litigation. Their outcomes are integral to the evolution of privacy law and data protection law across jurisdictions. This book brings together established scholars in privacy law, data protection law, and collective litigation to offer a detailed perspective on the present and future of collective litigation for privacy claims. Taking a comparative approach, this book incorporates considerations from consumer protection law, procedural law, cross-border litigation, tort law, and data protection law, which are key to understanding the development of privacy class actions. In doing so, it offers an analysis of the novel challenges they pose for courts, regulatory agencies, scholars, and litigators, together with their potential solutions.

"The Ontario Class Proceedings Act, 1992 represented a major innovation in civil procedure. Suzanne Chiodo’s book ... looks at the origins of representative proceedings in equity, the rise of modern-day class actions around the world (particularly in the United States and Quebec), and at the debates about the Ontario legislation. The book presents an ... analysis of the political and social influences that shaped this momentous legal change. It explains for the first time how the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee Report in 1990 pulled together so many divergent interests where previous attempts had failed."--Provided by publisher.