Representative action : Experience from France

1
Representative action Experience from France
By UFC QUE CHOISIR

• Conference on collective redress
• 9-10 November 2007
• Lisbonn

2
Legal Action for consumers individually

• the consumers refrain from taking action because
  the cost of litigation exceeds the estimated
  amount of individual loss suffered

3
Legal actions available to the consumer
organisations

• Only compensation for the collective consumer
  interest damage
• French consumer organisation cant make a real
  class action with all the consumers involved

4
are poorly adapted

• Damages obtained are way out of proportion
• Actions do not really have a deterrent effect
• Professionals prefer to go to court rather than
  compensate all the victims

5
The example of Cartelmobile action

• A decision by the French competition court of 30
  November 2005 imposed a penalty (534 million
  euros) on a market-sharing agreement (collusion)
  among mobile phone operators
• UFC QUE CHOISIR has created a website
  www.cartelmobile.org to help consumers calculate
  their injury

6
(No Transcript)
7
In this endeavour UFC-Que Choisir was heavily
involved, as shown by the following figures

• Extraordinary human resources 21 employees
  involved in the creation of the files (20 of
  staff)
• Large financial resources 500,000 Euros
• Material resources 3 cubic meters of files, and
  office mobilized for 6 months

8
There were 20 million mobile phone service
subscribers who could ask for compensation

• Only 12 521 consumers joined the case
• Only less than 1 of the victims joined our
  action

9
Cartelmobile perfectly illustrates how the French
law is poorly adapted to class action

• How will other consumers avail themselves of
  their right to compensation?
• This action will not have a deterrent effect on
  the companies
• It is quite obvious to us that new instruments
  must be created

10
A real class action with an opting-out feature
is necessary

• All the people who are covered by the definition
  of the group are automatically included, unless
  they opt out prior to a certain date, which is
  set in the judgement authorizing the class action
  
• Only this action would improve the ethical
  behaviour of the economic operators