HCCH a|Bridged e-Service
News
Out now: Financing Collective Actions in The Netherlands
The book Financing Collective Actions in the Netherlands: Towards a Litigation Fund? has just been published (Eleven International Publishing 2024) and is available open access. The book is authored by the Rotterdam Vici team members Xandra Kramer and Jos Hoevenaars, and Ianika Tzankova and Karlijn van Doorn (both TilbUniversity). It is an English and updated version of a Study commissioned by the Dutch Research and Documentation Centre of the Ministry of Justice, published in September 2023. It discusses developments in Dutch collective actions from a regulatory perspective, including the implementation of the RAD, and contains a quantitative and qualitative analysis of cases that have been brought under the WAMCA. It examines funding aspects of collective actions from a regulatory, empirical and comparative perspective. It delves into different funding modes, including market developments in third party litigation funding, and addresses the question of the necessity, feasibility, and design of a (revolving) litigation fund for collective actions.
A launch event and webinar will take place on 3 July from 15-17.15 hrs CET. Registration for free here.
Published: December 12, 2019
On 11 December, Xandra Kramer and Emma van Gelder participated in the HCCH a|Bridged Edition 2019 held at the Peace Palace in the Hague. The conference evolved around innovation in cross-border litigation and civil procedure, focusing on the HCCH Service Convention in the era of electronic and information technology.
Emma presented within the Panel ‘The Prism: The Tech Battle for e-Service’. Her topic was distributed ledger technology (DLT). She first briefly explained what DLT is. Subsequently, she explained how DLT could support and improve the operation of the HCCH Service Convention, touching upon benefits as efficiency, transparency and the mitigation on the dependence of an intermediary. After setting out the benefits, she presented several challenges of DLT touching upon challenges as lack of an international legal framework and legal standards, scalability challenges and the digital divide.
Xandra chaired the Open Lab panel, involving an academic examination of the operation of the Service Convention in the world of tomorrow and a discussion with the audience. Xandra’s presentation focused on the achievements of the Service Convention, as one of the most successful Conventions. She highlighted problems encountered in the EU context extrapolated to the global level as well as the tension between the required efficiency to improve access to justice and the need for protecting other fundamental rights, including the right to be heard, privacy and security in the digital context. She addressed the question in how far the Convention would need amendment, considering the principle of functional equivalent, and the need for an overarching instrument on digital judicial cooperation.