Corporate & Securities Law

Class action civil justice reform in Denmark

By Werner R. Kranenburg

From 1 January 2008, new legislation will come into force in Denmark that will introduce the class action procedure (Gruppesøgsmål) as part of the country’s reform of civil justice.

Jens Rostock-Jensen of Danish law firm Kromann Reumert gives a very brief overview of the new rules in his guest column in Schiffrin Barroway Topaz & Kessler LLP’s Summer 2007 Bulletin. For a more extensive discussion, see this article (in English; in Danish) from the Law Department of Denmark’s Ministry of Justice.

Noteworthy here is the rationale of the Standing Committee on Procedural Law’s (Retsplejerådet) findings and recommendations, in the article under the heading ‘Class actions under Danish law in general’. A quote:

The Standing Committee on Procedural Law finds that rules on class action will ensure that more people will have real access to the courts and that that form of action will thus facilitate the satisfaction of justified claims. Against this background, the Standing Committee on Procedural Law recommends that rules on class actions be introduced in Danish law.

The Standing Committee on Procedural Law is aware that there may be a certain risk that access to class actions is ?abused? to pressure enterprises and others to accept unjustified claims. When drafting the detailed rules on class actions, the Standing Committee on Procedural Law has therefore emphasised the importance of avoiding this risk by laying down a number of conditions for bringing class actions, including that the court must approve the case as being suited for a class action as well as a number of ?control mechanisms?[.]

For the Bill itself (in Danish), see here.

Rostock-Jensen predicts that “[a]lthough there are no limitations on the nature of the claims that are suitable for class action, it is expected that in the beginning it will first and foremost be consumer claims organised by the Consumer Ombudsman that will use this new method of processing a claim.”

Full post as published by With Vigour and Zeal on September 11, 2007 (boomark / email).