“Class Action a’ la Francaise”
Caroline Byrne and Cary O’Reilly of Bloomberg have this article from yesterday that provides additional information on the prospect of class actions in Europe. The article states that a trio of "unlikely allies"–French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Deutsche Telekom AG shareholders and American lawyers–"are laying the groundwork to make Europe the next battleground for U.S.- style class-action lawsuits."
As previously discussed here, Sarkozy recently called for the introduction of "class action a la Francaise.” The article also points out that
The landscape is changing Germany as well. When 16,000 shareholders of Bonn-based Deutsche Telekom swamped a Frankfurt court with 2,500 suits in 2003, alleging the company made false statements when issuing shares, the German government responded by passing a 2005 law that introduced a special procedure for shareholder suits.
