Collective Redress and Private International Law in the EU

This book specifically covers issues regarding jurisdiction and the recognition and

enforcement of judgments in cross-border mass disputes relating to financial services.

Collective redress mechanisms, legal mechanisms which can be used to resolve mass disputes

collectively, are growing more important. Due to the global increase in cross-border

trade and financial transactions, the number of cross-border mass disputes has increased.

In the EU, several prototypes of collective redress mechanism exist that can be used to

resolve mass disputes and, aside from the EU’s recommendation on the drafting of

laws relating to collective redress, a reevaluation of the Brussels Regulation has also

taken place as on 10 January 2015 the Brussels I-bis Regulation replaced the old Brussels

Regulation dating from 2000.

In spite of a minor reference to collective redress in the Commission proposal, Brussels

I-bis does not contain any provision relating to collective redress. As a result, many questions

regarding cross-border mass disputes and the relevant private international law issues remain

unanswered and unresolved. This book sets out to describe the most important prototypes

by referring to actual collective redress mechanisms.

In addition, it also sets out how parties to such mass disputes can confer jurisdiction to courts

in the EU and what the various pitfalls are. Moreover, the rules concerning the recognition

and enforcement of judgments originating from a collective procedure are listed. As

cross-border collective redress mechanisms and the rules of private international law to be

used in such a context are still being developed, the goals of private international law and

the goals of the referred collective redress mechanisms are analysed to provide an insight

into how these sets of rules should and could be employed.

This book is primarily aimed at researchers, practitioners and lawmakers actively involved

in and/or professionally interested in the field of private international law and collective

redress mechanisms and should prove very useful in providing them with a greater in-depth

understanding of the issues at hand.

Thijs Bosters is a law clerk at the Dutch Supreme Court. Prior to his work at the Supreme

Court, he was an attorney-at-law with NautaDutilh in The Netherlands, where he worked

in the Litigation & Arbitration department.