This book specifically covers issues regarding jurisdiction and the recognition and
enforcement of judgments in cross-border mass disputes relating to financial services.
Collective redress mechanisms, legal mechanisms which can be used to resolve mass disputes
collectively, are growing more important. Due to the global increase in cross-border
trade and financial transactions, the number of cross-border mass disputes has increased.
In the EU, several prototypes of collective redress mechanism exist that can be used to
resolve mass disputes and, aside from the EU's recommendation on the drafting of
laws relating to collective redress, a reevaluation of the Brussels Regulation has also
taken place as on 10 January 2015 the Brussels I-bis Regulation replaced the old Brussels
Regulation dating from 2000.
In spite of a minor reference to collective redress in the Commission proposal, Brussels
I-bis does not contain any provision relating to collective redress. As a result, many questions
regarding cross-border mass disputes and the relevant private international law issues remain
unanswered and unresolved. This book sets out to describe the most important prototypes
by referring to actual collective redress mechanisms.
In addition, it also sets out how parties to such mass disputes can confer jurisdiction to courts
in the EU and what the various pitfalls are. Moreover, the rules concerning the recognition
and enforcement of judgments originating from a collective procedure are listed. As
cross-border collective redress mechanisms and the rules of private international law to be
used in such a context are still being developed, the goals of private international law and
the goals of the referred collective redress mechanisms are analysed to provide an insight
into how these sets of rules should and could be employed.
This book is primarily aimed at researchers, practitioners and lawmakers actively involved
in and/or professionally interested in the field of private international law and collective
redress mechanisms and should prove very useful in providing them with a greater in-depth
understanding of the issues at hand.
Thijs Bosters is a law clerk at the Dutch Supreme Court. Prior to his work at the Supreme
Court, he was an attorney-at-law with NautaDutilh in The Netherlands, where he worked
in the Litigation & Arbitration department.
