Scotland’s first formal class action mechanism, known as ‘group procedure’, was introduced on 31 July 2020.
Primary legislation was required to introduce the new procedure. The Civil Litigation (Expenses and Group Proceedings) (Scotland) Act 2018 (the 2018 Act) received royal assent on 5 June 2018. The 2018 Act introduced a framework that would enable both opt-in and opt-out procedures to be created by way of detailed court rules. In March 2020, the Scottish Civil Justice Committee3 (SCJC) conducted a limited consultation to introduce an opt-in scheme. The SCJC indicated that further consideration would be given to introducing an opt-out scheme at a later date. Following that consultation, the Act of Sederunt (Rules of the Court of Session 1994 Amendment) (Group Proceedings) 20204 was laid before the Scottish Parliament in early July 2020 and came into force on 31 July 2020.
As with previous editions of this review, this updated publication aims to provide practitioners and clients with a single overview handbook to which they can turn for the key procedures, developments and factors in play in a number of the world’s most important jurisdictions.
The Scotland chapter has been reproduced with permission from Law Business Research Ltd. This article was first published in April 2023. For further information please contact Nick.Barette@thelawreviews.co.uk.
