EU-Wide Representative Actions In Consumer Litigation – A Level Playing Field?

All consumer-facing industries will be affected by the Representative Actions Directive¹ (the "Directive"), with sectors such as finance, technology and health at risk of increased litigation by consumers acting collectively. These will in many cases be the same businesses that are already under the spotlight in what is a more and more regulated market, such as financial services companies and on-line traders. This is likely to result in an increase in claims involving financial services, data protection, energy, telecommunications, product liability, food, the environment, travel and tourism and unfair terms in consumer contracts.

The European Commission has for many years been critical of the disharmonised patchwork of collective redress mechanisms available to consumers among EU Member States, particularly following 'mass harm' situations. At present consumers in certain Member States have the ability to seek redress on a collective basis, whilst this is