Author(s):
Sonia Bjorkquist, Karin Sachar, Sarah McLeod, Michael Peerless
May 24, 2017
Class actions continue to be a major risk for many businesses. Several notable judicial trends emerged last year that will shape the class action landscape moving forward, including greater judicial scrutiny of class action settlements and fee sharing agreements, the refinement of the courts’ approach to approving third party funding arrangements, and the increased use of summary judgment in class proceedings (with mixed success).
Companies facing threatened or existing class action lawsuits should understand these trends and how they can affect their business. This year-in-review article, which originally appeared in Colloque national sur l'action collective: Développements récents au Québec, au Canada et aux États-Unis, offers insight and analysis of the following procedural trends affecting class actions practice:
- Use of summary judgment motions in class actions
- Greater judicial scrutiny of third party funding arrangements, fee-sharing agreements (no “ransom fees” allowed) and proposed settlements
- The disparate impact of standing issues in consumer protection cases
- Emerging “global” class actions
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