| Popis: |
On April 12, 2019, the Italian Parliament passed a statute providing for a new regulation of collective redress. For the first time in the relatively short life of Italian group actions, both actions for compensatory relief (i.e. damages or restitution) and actions for injunctive relief are governed together and moved from the Consumer Code to the Code of Civil Procedure. This reflects a new vision of collective redress, namely a wider scope of application: no more references to consumers and users, but standing granted generically to bearers of ‘homogenous individual rights’, whether or not they are consumers or users. Furthermore, the new perimeter of class actions encompasses any claims arising out of both contract liability and tort liability, which signals another significant change aimed at designing class actions as general remedies. Yet, nothing has changed as far as the procedure by which class members can join the action is concerned: the opt-in option has been preserved even though the timeframe for opting in has been extended. In spite of a few interesting features, the new rules sketch a procedure that is still cumbersome and excessively technical. It should be interesting to see whether this attempt at reinvigorating group actions will be successful. |
