The new act provides for a unified class action regime under French law, going beyond the mere transposition of the EU Directive on Collective Redress. It also introduces a civil penalty to the French Civil Code for serial damages resulting from an intentional breach (applicable also outside of class actions).
In our client alert, we analyse the main changes introduced by the new law. The key highlights are the following:
- A new “serial damages” civil penalty is introduced in the French Civil Code. Courts can impose this penalty in all types of proceedings, at the request of the public prosecutor or the government. It will be applicable (outside of class actions) to professionals having caused serial damages by intentionally breaching their contractual or legal obligations to obtain undue profits or savings.
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- The new act creates a unified regime for class actions in France, going beyond the mere transposition of the EU Collective Redress Directive:
- legal standing to bring a class action for compensation purposes is limited to non-profit and government-accredited associations meeting five cumulative criteria intended to ensure transparency, reliability and prevent conflicts of interests;
- legal persons can now take part in class actions, alongside individuals;
- obviously baseless class actions can now be dismissed in the early stages of the proceedings;
- the “delayed opt-in” mechanism already used in existing sector-specific class actions (i.e. the possibly to opt in at a later stage of the proceedings, following the ruling on liability) is maintained under the new unified regime;
- third-party funding is regulated under strict conditions aiming to ensure transparency and protect the interests of the represented persons by preventing the funder from exerting any influence on the launch or conduct of the class action; in case of conflict of interest, the court must declare the action inadmissible and administrative authorities may withdraw the funded association’s accreditation;
- transparency and access to information by the public on class actions is facilitated;
- specialised courts will be designated and have jurisdiction over all class actions.
- Antitrust follow-on class actions are facilitated.
The bill has been promulgated and published in the French Official Journal on 2 May 2025.
It will apply to class actions introduced after 3 May 2025. The new “serial damages” civil penalty shall, however, only apply to misconduct committed after the publication of the law.
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