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The Goals of the Class Action through the Prism of the Defendant
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The Goals of the Class Action through the Prism of the Defendant
Abstract
PII
S1991-32220000622-3-1
DOI
10.61205/jzsp.2023.087
Publication type
Article
Status
Published
Authors
Viktor Domshenko 
Occupation: Head of the Department of Judicial Protection, JSC Russian Post; Applicant at the Department of Civil Procedure, USLU named after V. F. Yakovlev
Affiliation: Ural State Law University named after V. F. Yakovlev
Address: Yekaterinburg, Russia
Edition
Volume 19 No. 6
Pages
112-122
Abstract

A class action serves several key purposes, in particular, ensuring effective protection of violated rights and legitimate interests of a large group of persons, achieving procedural economy, and preventing new offenses. Consideration of these goals is often carried out from the perspective of the plaintiffs (the first goal), the judicial system (the second goal) and society as a whole (the third goal). At the same time, the analysis of the value of a class action for the defendant through the prism of these goals, as a rule, is not carried out.

The purpose of the article is to consider the key objectives of the class action mechanism from the position of their influence on the interests of the defendant. Based on the use of the method of comparative analysis of the doctrine of individual countries (the USA and the UK), the author identified the positive and negative values of a class action for the defendant in relation to each of the goals. The findings can be used in the development of scientific and law enforcement approaches to the construction of a class action in the Russian legal order.

The research uses general scientific methods (analysis and synthesis), as well as private scientific methods (comparative legal, formal legal).

The author concludes that victims of the defendant’s violations often refrain from filing claims due to the small amount of damage caused to them, which allows defenders to continue violating the rights and legitimate interests of participants in civil turnover without worrying about their legal liability The downside of such a class action effect is the high risks for the defendant due to the potentially significant amount of his losses, reputational costs and the risks of presenting him with obviously unjustified class actions. Therefore, the defendant’s objections to the consideration of the claim in the order of group proceedings should be the object of a thorough, and not a formal judicial review before the trial on the merits. The author proposes to grant the defendant, subject to a set of conditions, the right to apply for the initiation of group proceedings for the concentration of standard claims against him from potential victims.

Keywords
class action, group litigation, economy of procedure, prevention of violations, defendant
Date of publication
11.12.2023
Number of purchasers
7
Views
65
Readers community rating
0.0 (0 votes)
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