Class Actions In Italy: Recent Developments

Class actions in Italy are a recent introduction. Traditionally, according to the Italian system, a group of individuals whose rights were allegedly violated by the behavior of a business entity did not have the power to jointly sue such entity. In order to obtain relief, each of them had to bring separate actions, which caused disadvantages such as the risk of conflicting judgments and an undue burden on the overloaded Italian judiciary. After years of debate, the 2007 Italian Budget Law1 introduced a specific provision (Article 140 bis) in the Italian Consumer Code,2 regulating the so-called "collective actions." These were intended as an avenue for consumer associations and committees to obtain - for the benefit of their members whose "collective interests" were violated - restitution and damages for certain contractual or tort claims, or in respect of unfair commercial or anticompetitive conducts. Before becoming effective, Article 140 bis was subject to a number of amendments, such as those contained in Article 49 of Law no. 99 dated July 23, 2009. Collective actions were then renamed "class actions" and were directed to protect each of the plaintiffs' "individual rights," rather than their collective interests. Accordingly, the relevant locus standi was shifted from national consumer associations or committees to single users and consumers, either individually or represented by one of the mentioned organizations, which, lacking autonomous standing, must be duly empowered by class members themselves. On January 1, 2010, after several postponements, Article 140 bis entered into force in respect of harmful events occurred after August 16, 2009. Subsequently, Article 6 of Law Decree no. 1 dated January 24, 2012, ratified by Law no. 27 dated March 24, 2012 under the heading "Rules to make class actions effective," added a further set of amendments. The recent changes, effective as of March 25, 2012, lowered one of the admissibility thresholds: formerly, class actions were inadmissible if class members' rights for which protection was sought were not "identical," whereas these rights now need to be "homogeneous," which is a wider concept. Class actions are not a widespread phenomenon in Italy. Only a handful of lawsuits have been brought before Italian Courts,3 and most of them were unsuccessful. The majority was dismissed at the admissibility bar, and one was rejected on the merits. However, on February 18, 2013, the first class action was upheld on the merits by the Court of Naples (Judgment no. 2195 dated February 18, 2013). This judgment concerned the claims brought by a group of tourists against a tour operator in respect of a purchased all-inclusive holiday package, according to which the plaintiffs were to spend a week in Zanzibar in a specific four-star resort. However, once on the island, the tourists were initially sent to a different hotel because the agreed hotel had not been fully restored. The new hotel was significantly less luxurious. Moreover, when the tourists were eventually transferred to the agreed hotel, they experienced further unexpected disadvantages, given that the pool and spa structures were not fit for use and the tourists could only use the hotel beach, which had not been decontaminated. The court upheld the claims of the lead plaintiffs and part of the group but rejected the claims of the remaining class members on the grounds that their rights were not perfectly "identical" to those of the others.4 In this regard, the court had...

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