Home / International / Dispute Resolution / European Class Actions

International European Class Actions law firm

Back to Dispute Resolution

CMS' leading class action team and unparalleled European structure develops and implements cohesive defence strategies for cross border cases.

Class actions are on the rise in Europe, and corporates are increasingly facing class actions filed in multiple European jurisdictions simultaneously. With the largest European coverage of any major law firm, CMS is uniquely placed to defend these matters robustly, whilst handling reputational and any regulatory issues. 

Class action risk is driven by local procedural law, and the diversity of rules within Europe means that corporates can face a patchwork of opt-in and opt-out claims. This requires a holistic defence strategy to address their specific threats. We identify fault lines and dispositive strategies. Opt-in claims bring particular logistical and practical challenges and our technology-driven practices deliver results whilst maximising efficiences. Opt-out claims are a new phenomenon in Europe, and require different strategies.

Most of all, we recognise that class actions can be board-level events. We support clients throughout the process and pride ourselves on the results we achieve.

Acting as a strategic advisor for a leading German car-manufacturer against a large number of diesel-related customer claims before German courts and in several other European jurisdictions.

CMS

Defending banks and financial institutions in class action disputes regarding mortgage loans, financial instruments, pension funds, fraud, misleading statements, D&O liability and PI cover issues.

CMS

Discover our data driven insights into class action risk across Europe

07/07/2022
CMS European Class Ac­tions Re­port 2022
Data driv­en in­sights in­to  class ac­tion risk across Europe, a key con­cern for ma­jor cor­por­ates

Other related content

23/03/2022
CMS Ex­pert Guide to European class ac­tions
 Class ac­tions have been on the rise in Europe for a num­ber of years, but the rate is ac­cel­er­at­ing. New pro­ced­ur­al devices in­ten­ded to bet­ter fa­cil­it­ate col­lect­ive re­dress con­tin­ue to be in­tro­duced. Of­ten these mech­an­isms op­er­ate on an opt-in basis,
Comparable
08/09/2022
Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion - Con­sumer Products & Re­tail
Di­git­al­isa­tion has trans­formed how con­sumer products are man­u­fac­tured, dis­trib­uted and sold.The push to main­tain a com­pet­it­ive ad­vant­age, drives in­creased in­vest­ment in new tech­no­lo­gies. This in­vest­ment may re­duce op­er­a­tion­al cost and ease the re­ten­tion of leg­acy sys­tems, but what chal­lenges arise and how do busi­nesses ap­proach the chan­ging risk pro­file?This re­port is a deep dive in­to data first pro­duced for the re­port Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion: Man­aging Risks in a Chan­ging Land­scape. In the ori­gin­al re­port we sur­veyed over 500 cor­por­ate coun­sel and risk man­agers from mul­tiple in­dus­tries across the world.Here, we look in de­tail at the 75 re­spond­ents sur­veyed in the con­sumer and re­tail sec­tor, and their per­spect­ives on the risks as­so­ci­ated with busi­ness-crit­ic­al tech­no­lo­gies, in­clud­ing emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies. Our sur­vey shows that busi­nesses across the sec­tor, wheth­er re­tail­ers or man­u­fac­tur­ers, have the same con­cerns but the in­flu­ences on the ad­op­tion of tech­no­logy, the res­ult­ing risks, and the ap­proaches taken to mit­ig­ate or re­solve those risks vary de­pend­ing on wheth­er or not the busi­ness in­volves a dir­ect sales re­la­tion­ship with the con­sumer.Down­load the con­sumer and re­tail sec­tor re­port now to read about: Drivers of tech­no­logy ad­op­tion in the con­sumer and re­tail sec­torNew risks emer­ging and tra­di­tion­al bar­ri­ers to risk man­age­ment­Cur­rent tech­no­logy risks in the con­sumer and re­tail sec­tor­Fu­ture risks and meas­ures to deal with themPre­ferred ap­proaches to tech­no­logy dis­pute res­ol­u­tion for the con­sumer and re­tail sec­tor

Feed

07/2022
CMS In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest - 2022 Sum­mer Edi­tion
Wel­come to the sum­mer edi­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest, a bi-an­nu­al pub­lic­a­tion that high­lights, ex­plores and ana­lyses the latest trends in the glob­al dis­pute-res­ol­u­tion sec­tor.Al­though the...
07/07/2022
CMS European Class Ac­tions Re­port 2022
Data driv­en in­sights in­to  class ac­tion risk across Europe, a key con­cern for ma­jor cor­por­ates
23/03/2022
CMS Ex­pert Guide to European class ac­tions
Class ac­tions have been on the rise in Europe for a num­ber of years, but the rate is ac­cel­er­at­ing. New pro­ced­ur­al devices in­ten­ded to bet­ter fa­cil­it­ate col­lect­ive re­dress con­tin­ue to be in­tro­duced. Of­ten...
Comparable
12/2021
CMS In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest - 2021 Winter Edi­tion
Wel­come to the winter edi­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest, a bi­an­nu­al pub­lic­a­tion that ex­plores, ana­lyses and provides com­ment­ary on the latest trends in the world­wide dis­pute-res­ol­u­tion mar­ket.Des­pite...
22/07/2021
CMS In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest - 2021 Sum­mer Edi­tion
Wel­come to the 2021 sum­mer edi­tion of our In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest, a bi-an­nu­al pub­lic­a­tion fea­tur­ing ana­lys­is and com­ment­ary on the key trends cur­rently shap­ing the glob­al dis­pute res­ol­u­tion mar­ket.As...
28/07/2021
Class ac­tion risk for the in­sur­ance in­dustry
The num­ber of class ac­tions be­ing filed in Europe is show­ing a re­lent­less up­ward trend with a 120% growth between 2018 and 2020. Drivers be­hind this growth in­clude new pro­ced­ur­al devices, in­creas­ingly...
06/07/2021
Class ac­tions risk in the con­sumer products sec­tor
The num­ber of class ac­tions be­ing filed in Europe is show­ing a re­lent­less up­ward trend with a 120% growth between 2018 and 2020. Drivers be­hind this growth in­clude new pro­ced­ur­al devices, in­creas­ingly...
16/06/2021
CMS European Class Ac­tions Re­port 2021
First re­port on the true pic­ture of European class ac­tion risk, a key con­cern for ma­jor cor­por­ates 
17/11/2020
CMS Dis­putes Talk
In these un­cer­tain times, glob­al busi­nesses in al­most every sec­tor are fa­cing chal­lenges brought about by an un­pre­ced­en­ted op­er­a­tion­al cli­mate. Ac­tions and de­cisions taken dur­ing and im­me­di­ately after...
02/07/2020
EU agrees new class ac­tion re­gime for con­sumer dis­putes
After a long gest­a­tion, on 30 June 2020 the Coun­cil of the EU pub­lished the text for the col­lect­ive re­dress dir­ect­ive (the “CR Dir­ect­ive”) (text avail­able here). This le­gis­la­tion is in­ten­ded to bet­ter...
23/06/2020
In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest - Sum­mer Edi­tion 2020
Back to main page Wel­come to the sum­mer edi­tion of our In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest, a bi-an­nu­al pub­lic­a­tion fea­tur­ing ana­lys­is and com­ment­ary on the key trends cur­rently shap­ing the glob­al dis­pute res­ol­u­tion...
10/06/2020
Scot­tish class ac­tion pro­ced­ure to come in­to force on 31 Ju­ly 2020
A new mech­an­ism for bring­ing group pro­ceed­ings (class ac­tions) in Scot­land will come in­to force on 31 Ju­ly 2020. Class ac­tions rep­res­ent a sig­ni­fic­ant risk for cor­por­ate and pub­lic sec­tor de­fend­ants alike...