Recommendation 2013/396 - Common principles for injunctive and compensatory collective redress mechanisms in the Member States concerning violations of rights granted under Union Law - Main contents

SUMMARY OF:

Recommendation 2013/396/EU on common principles for injunctive and compensatory collective redress mechanisms in EU Member States

WHAT IS THE AIM OF THIS RECOMMENDATION?

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  It sets out a series of common non-binding principles for national collective redress* mechanisms.
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  The aim is to enable citizens and companies to enforce their rights granted to them under European Union (EU) law where these have been infringed.
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  These redress mechanisms should be available in different areas where EU law grants rights to citizens and companies, such as in consumer protection, competition, environmental protection and financial services.

KEY POINTS

The main principles are laid down in a European Commission recommendation, published in parallel with a communication which suggests that all EU Member States introduce collective redress mechanisms based on agreed principles. These principles are as follows:

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  Claimants should be able to seek court orders to cease violations of their rights granted by EU law (‘injunctive relief’) and to claim damages for harm caused by such violations (‘compensatory relief’) in a case where a large number of persons are harmed by the same illegal practice.
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  Collective redress procedures must be fair, equitable, timely and not prohibitively expensive.
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  Collective redress systems should be based on the ‘opt-in’ principle. Under this principle, potential claimants who have not directly expressed their consent are not members of the group and therefore, may not benefit directly from a favourable outcome of the collective redress proceedings.
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  There should be procedural safeguards to avoid abuse of collective redress systems such as:

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    a ban on punitive (i.e. excessively high) damages and interest;
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    entities representing claimants should not be profit-making;
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    a ban on the payment of contingency fees to lawyers.

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  The losing party is required to pay the winning party’s legal costs.
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  The judge has a key role in the collective litigation* to effectively manage the case and must be vigilant against any possible abuses.
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  Claimants should be able to settle the case by means of collective consensual dispute resolution mechanisms (i.e. procedures whereby parties reach consensus on a solution).

WHEN DOES THE RECOMMENDATION APPLY?

Member States were invited to apply these principles no later than 26 July 2015.

BACKGROUND

Collective redress facilitates access to justice by those whose rights have been violated by one and the same entity. It allows them to enforce their rights collectively where they would not have done on an individual basis because of the cost or the time that it entails.

The EU framework for collective redress complements the existing mechanisms at EU level namely:

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  the European Small Claims Procedure,
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  the directive on alternative dispute resolution,
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  the directive on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters, or
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  the directive on actions for damages under national law for infringements of competition law.

KEY TERMS

Collective redress: a mechanism that results in the ending or preventing of an unlawful business practice that affects a group of claimants or the compensation for the harm caused by these practices.

Group/ collective litigation: a lawsuit brought by a group of claimants.

MAIN DOCUMENT

Commission Recommendation 2013/396/EU of 11 June 2013 on common principles for injunctive and compensatory collective redress mechanisms in the Member States concerning violations of rights granted under Union Law (OJ L 201, 26.7.2013, pp. 60-65)

RELATED DOCUMENTS

Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee on the implementation of the Commission Recommendation of 11 June 2013 on common principles for injunctive and compensatory collective redress mechanisms in the Member States concerning violations of rights granted under Union law (2013/396/EU) (COM(2018) 40 final, 25 January 2018)

Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: ‘Towards a European Horizontal Framework for Collective Redress’ (COM(2013) 401 final, 11 June 2013)

last update 30.08.2016

This summary has been adopted from EUR-Lex.