About the Book
This book by Kees Jan Kuilwijk explains how collective redress operates under Dutch law, with particular emphasis on the WAMCA, the statutory regime that since 2020 has enabled representative organisations to pursue damages claims on behalf of large groups on an opt-out basis.
Its starting point is economic. Claims too small to justify the cost of individual litigation
will ordinarily never be brought. Collective actions and litigation funding exist to overcome
that problem. The question running through the book is therefore one of control: who
controls a collective claim, and in whose interests? Dutch law answers that question institutionally.
Claims are pursued by foundations and associations subject to judicial supervision,
rather than by entrepreneurial lawyers as in the United States. The courts scrutinise the
governance, independence and representativeness of those organisations, as well as the role and influence of litigation funders.
The book follows a collective action through the stages at which the legal regime confronts
it, from jurisdiction, admissibility and commonality to settlement and distribution. It then
turns to the more difficult substantive questions: how aggregate damages can be quantified, how claims may be bundled through assignment, and how compensation for non-material harm under the GDPR is developing.
Comparison with the UK and US systems leads to the book’s central conclusion. The Dutch model subjects collective claims to intensive scrutiny at the outset. That protects the interests of the represented class, but it also delays the redress the system was designed to provide. The emerging case law increasingly reveals the cost of that trade-off.
About the Author
Dr Kees Jan Kuilwijk helps consumers and businesses recover damages from companies that have engaged in unlawful conduct. He has more than 30 years of experience in competition law and has acted in some of Europe’s largest antitrust damages proceedings. He is an attorney at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP and holds a PhD, awarded cum laude, from the European University Institute in Florence.
