Best Lawyers Near You in Madrid, Spain for Mass Tort Litigation

Spanish civil litigation is a Civil Law system, with some regional variations. The Spanish statutory rules governing class or group litigation are mainly laid down by the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil (LEC). 

Various enforcement provisions originate from European legislation, and are implemented into Spanish legislation. The provisions are statutory, and enable collective action to be taken to defend the collective rights of consumers and users in specified circumstances. The available are typically injunctions and actions for damages. The consumer organizations possess the right to bring collective actions, having an important role, together with some public authorities, in the enforcement of this mechanism.

The articles in Civil Procedural Act (LEC) concerning group litigation are scarce and dispersed: articles 6 on capacity to sue, 7 on appearance at trial, 11 on standing to sue, 13 and 15 on notice and intervention, 221 on res iudicata, 222 on requirements of judgment, and 519 on consumers’ executive action in enforcement of judgment.

The LEC does not set up a special proceeding for collective or group litigation, but it provides for some specific procedural rules which must be applied to these lawsuits, that will follow to correspondent ordinary proceeding, but taking care of these special rules. So, these actions will be processed by an ordinary proceeding with peculiarities. 

In short, the action begins with the filing of the complaint by the entitled sue. Law also provides the best notice and publicity to be given to all affected and their possible intervention of individual consumers and other associations. Later on, it lays down the main features and requirements of the judgment and its effects. And finally, the possible appearance of affected in the enforcement of judgment, seeking the defense of their rights recognized in it.

Where the claim is for monetary compensation, or in order to require the defendant to do, abstain to do, or give a specific or generic thing, the judgment shall determine individually which consumers and users must benefit from it according to law. Where such determination is impossible, the judgment shall establish the details, features, and requirements necessary to demand payment and, where appropriate, to apply for or take part in the enforcement of the judgment, if requested by the claimant association.