Conference: Courts as an Arena of Societal Change
News
Mapping Study TPLF in Europe
The European Commission has released the Mapping Study on Third Party Litigation Funding (TPLF) in the European Union. This comprehensive study provides a detailed
analysis of legislation, practices, and stakeholder perspectives across the EU and in selected third countries.
Over the past years, third party litigation funding has become one of the most debated topics in European civil justice. The EU Representative Actions Directive - requiring Member States to establish collective action mechanisms for EU consumer cases - has intensified this discussion. Collective actions to obtain damages often involve significant expenses and procedural risks. In the absence of other suitable funding mechanisms, TPLF has gained prominence as a means to support such claims.
This trend was also reflected in extensive research, reported earlier on this website, carried out at the request of the Dutch Ministry of Justice on the WAMCA (the Dutch Act on Collective Damages Claims), which highlighted the growing reliance on third party funding in the Netherlands.
In September 2022, the European Parliament adopted a Resolution on Responsible Private Funding of Litigation, urging the European Commission to consider stricter regulation of TPLF. In response, the Commission commissioned this in-depth Mapping Study, which analyses existing legal frameworks, practical experiences, and the divergent approaches among Member States.
From our research group, Jos Hoevenaars acted as national co-reporter, and Xandra Kramer contributed as a member of the advisory board. The findings of this study will play a key role in shaping the future policy debate on TPLF regulation in the EU.
Published: July 12, 2022
Carlota Ucín has participated in the Conference: ‘Courts as an Arena for Societal Change’ that took place on the 8 and 9 July 2022, at Leiden Law School. In her presentation, she developed some ideas from her recent book: Inequality on trials. The defence of social rights through the judicial process (in Spanish). In particular, she focused on the importance of introducing some reforms within the judicial process to legitimate the role of courts in public interest litigation. She presented the idea of the ‘deliberative legitimacy of courts’ that implies the possibility of opening up the dialogue between interested and affected groups through public hearings as well as enforcing the duty of justification of the judges by applying a scheme of argumentation that includes a more sophisticated proportionality test.