Published in Class Actions, by Federated Press, Spring,
2008
Article by
Louise Moher and Lynda Morgan*
The North American-style class action has largely been rejected
throughout Europe. In the past 10 years, however, many European
countries have developed unique approaches to collective redress.
This article is the fourth in a series of articles that examine the
development of multi-party litigation in specific jurisdictions
outside North America1.
Until recently, German law granted very little in terms of
collective redress. 2 The notion of a class action
conflicts with Germany's fundamental right to be heard and
right to court access by an individual to plead his or her case
individually, all of which are constitutionally
protected.3 However, when thousands of individual
securities claims were filed against Deutsche Telekom, the German
legislature was forced to reconsider its conservative position on
collective redress. The product of this reflection is The
