Reflections On The Directive On European Representative Actions Ahead Of Its Transposition Into Austrian Law

On 24 November 2020, the European Parliament adopted the Directive on representative actions for the protection of collective interests of consumers (Directive),¹ which became a decisive step of the European Union (EU) towards building collective redress mechanism in all 27 EU Member States. First proposed by the European Commission in April 2018 as part of its New Deal for Consumers package,² the Directive provides the possibility for consumers throughout the EU to be represented in domestic as well as cross-border class actions by qualified entities. Member States have to transpose the Directive until 25 December 2022 and have a further 6 months to apply it. With the deadline for transposition approaching steadily, the Austrian legislator is expected to release a draft law on the Directive's implementation in 2022. It is therefore of relevance to revisit the Directive by outlining its major points and analyzing its impact on the current legal framework