Tag: collective redress

Lady Justice

BEUC’s relentless quest for collective redress that works for consumers

The topic of ‘collective redress’ is fuelling heated discussions across Europe and beyond. That’s because the EU’s landmark Representative Actions Directive is currently entering into national legislation, making it easier for consumers to go to court as a group if...

and / November 4, 2022

Taking on the bank – Lessons from using, not abusing, our group action system.

After four years, countless hours and 1.42 million euros spent, we won the biggest group action suit in the history of our country against Norway’s biggest bank. The cheers were many, but so were the lessons. Background In 2015, The...

/ May 23, 2019
Gavel On Portuguese Flag: Portuguese Constitution and Justice Concept

A law allowing consumer compensation that Portugal can be proud of

Imagine this: your telecom company charged you more than it ought to, or you bought a car and the company misled you and you suffered damages. Or your personal data was sold, without your knowledge or consent, to a third...

/ October 19, 2018
Consumers are better off when they fight together

Successes and challenges of the French law allowing group actions

The French collective redress procedure, where consumers can go to court as a group, will soon enter its 5th year of operation. Time to have a look at what has been achieved (or not). It’s certainly food for thought in...

/ October 8, 2018
Ryanair strike

Ryanair strike: why passengers urgently need collective redress

It can be frustrating to be a passenger rights specialist nowadays. Even if at BEUC we don’t deal with consumer complaints, a task that our members fulfil, I still get a lot of questions from family/friends/colleagues asking for advice when...

/ September 28, 2018

Altroconsumo’s experience of collective redress

If the market is the carrot, then group actions are the stick. The creation of an EU-wide collective redress procedure is currently being hotly debated in Brussels. In Italy meanwhile, the Italian consumer group Altroconsumo has used this stick 14 times...

/ September 14, 2018

US-style litigation culture? Only if you like alternative facts!

  The howls of protest from business groups could be heard across Europe. On 11 April, the Commission proposed to make collective compensation claims possible when large numbers of consumers have been harmed by the same trader. Cue uproar and...

Collective redress for European consumers – yes, we can

I was sitting back in a train from Strasbourg to Brussels in early spring 1998. Looking at the landscape in a train often gives you the distance you need to analyse something happening in your life. I was a young...

/ April 16, 2018