Potential Collective Consumer Lawsuits Coming to the EU

Teresa Griffin, Patrick Reilly, Kaitlyn Stone, and Mike Zogby presented “Potential Collective Consumer Lawsuits Coming to the EU: The EU’s Collective Redress Directive” for the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC).

The European Parliament formally endorsed a new collective actions legislation, Directive (EU) 2020/1828 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2020 on Representative Actions for the Protection of the Collective Interests of Consumers and Repealing Directive 2009/22/EC. This Directive provides the potential for collective consumer lawsuits to the European Union, and is designed to harmonize enforcement of consumer protection laws, safeguard consumer interests and protect against abusive lawsuits. “Qualified entities,” such as consumer organizations and public bodies, may bring representative lawsuits on behalf of consumers against “traders” for violations of a limited list of 66 EU laws, including general consumer laws, data privacy, energy, financial services, telecommunications, travel and tourism, and environment and health.

The webinar analyzed what the Directive means for companies doing business in the EU, and provided a procedural overview of the Directive’s history and outlined the timeline for next events, before analyzing substantive issues, which include: who constitutes a “trader”; what constitutes a “qualified entity”; what remedies the Directive provides; the intersection between the Directive and data privacy laws; exceptions to the Directive; and what impact the Directive will have on EU member states that already have collective redress laws in place.