Belgian Court Rules On Recognition Of U.S. Class Action Settlements

On 23 March 2017, the Ghent Court of Appeal (Hof van Beroep/Cour d'Appel) ("Court of Appeal") handed down a lengthy judgment on the merits in the well-known Lernout & Hauspie ("L&H") case. The judgment contains a specific section on the recognition in Belgium of two United States opt-out class action settlements.

Class action suits are legal devices that allow an individual (or a small group of individuals) to proceed in court on behalf of a much larger and unnamed group of individuals, who have suffered a similar injury and who share common claims.

While class actions form an integral part of the judicial system in the United States, European jurisdictions (with the notable exception of the Netherlands) tend to be very cautious with respect to this instrument. It is only in June 2013 that the European Union published a recommendation setting out a series of common, non-binding principles that EU Member States should adopt in order to put collective redress