It should be easier for anyone who takes legal action against a company in the future. Whether in the case of canceled flights or unlawful contractual clauses: the extended right of collective action provides for faster compensation, among other things.
The Bundestag enables a new form of collective action that consumers can use to take action against companies. Misconduct should thus be dealt with in a less complicated manner in the future. A corresponding law was passed in the plenum – with the votes of the traffic light parties. Union and AfD voted against it. The left faction abstained. A motion for a resolution tabled by her was rejected by a majority.
In the future, associations should be able to use this lawsuit if they represent at least 50 affected consumers. In addition, small companies should also be able to benefit from larger corporations. The Federation of German Consumer Organizations has already announced that it intends to make quick use of the new option.
addition of Model Declaratory Action
The representative action supplements the existing model declaratory action. The main difference is that the injured party should receive their reimbursement immediately after a successful lawsuit. The model declaratory action was introduced in 2018 as a result of the VW diesel scandal: since then, consumers have been able to sue companies together.
As a result of the lawsuit, Europe’s largest carmaker had laboriously negotiated a settlement with consumer advocates in 2020. Amounts of between 1,350 and 6,250 euros were paid out to customers who suffered damage.
Facilitate easier legal processing
The new law is intended to belatedly transpose an EU directive into German law. Misconduct by companies should thus be easier to deal with legally in the future. This could be used, for example, where flights are canceled and there are numerous similar claims for compensation. Warranty claims due to defective products could also be the subject of a lawsuit, as could claims by bank customers for invalid contractual clauses.
FDP and Greens disagree over time span
The sticking point in the previous deliberations in the Bundestag was the point in time up to which such lawsuits can be joined. Consumer Protection Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) had demanded that consumers can still join after a verdict.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) called for this to be done by the time the lawsuit began, at the latest, with reference to the need for companies to be able to plan. The compromise now states that consumers have up to three weeks after the end of the hearing in court.
Criticism from Union and economy
The federal government hopes that the new regulation will not only increase consumer protection but also relieve the burden on the judiciary. According to its own statements, it expects 15 lawsuits from associations against companies every year, which would eliminate 22,500 individual lawsuits. The CDU MP Martin Plum doubted this on Twitter.
Union MPs criticized, among other things, the “late point in time up to which one can join the lawsuit”. All in all, the risk is “distributed blatantly unequally between associations and companies,” said Günter Krings. Company representatives had also repeatedly expressed criticism in the legislative process.
However, the General Association of the German Insurance Industry welcomed the final law as a “compromise that contains many sensible regulations for legal certainty”.
2023-07-07 19:10:55
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