The English Supreme Court in Vedanta Resources PLC and Another v Lungowe and others has allowed over 1,800 Zambian villagers to issue proceedings in England against an English parent and its Zambian subsidiary. This decision could pave the way for other mass tort claim bearing similar features. The decision tipped in favour of England as the proper place to bring this claim due to the perceived inability for the Zambian claimants to obtain access to…
EU
The possibility of an EU-wide framework for collective redress is approaching with the closing of the European Commission’s call for evidence on the implementation of the Commission’s Recommendation 2013/396/EU (the “Recommendation”) on 15 August 2015. The Commission will now proceed to formulate its report (the “Report”).
The Report is intended to gather together information about practical experience of collective redress systems across the EU, as the Commission is concerned to determine whether current systems are effective in giving consumers access to justice and enable them to recover damages in the context of: consumer protection, competition, environment, personal data, financial services and investor protection. The evidence collected will be used to determine whether legislative steps at EU level are required in order to impose a minimum procedural standard for collective action regimes in the EU. Although the 2013 Recommendation set out common principles for injunctive and compensatory collective redress mechanisms, it was non-binding.