The webinar, which brought together 60 participants from Croatia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Hungary, Italy, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Türkiye, commenced with a warm welcome address from Prof Emilia Mišćenić (ELI Croatian Hub Co-Chair; Professor at the University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law).

This was followed by an insightful lecture on ‘Class actions in the UK and Ireland. A tale of two common laws diverging post-Brexit’ delivered by Professor Geraint Howells (University of Galway; ELI Council member).

In the first part of his lecture, Professor Howells discussed the legal framework established by Directive (EU) 2020/1828 on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers. The second part of the lecture dealt with group litigation orders and representative actions in the UK, with particular focus on opt-out actions in the area of competition law and several recent UK cases (eg, Merricks v Mastercard, Gormsen v Meta, Gutmann v First MTR South Western Trains Limited, Riefa v Apple and Amazon,  Coll v Alphabet and Others). The final part of the lecture focused on the recently enacted Representative Actions for the Protection of the Collective Interests of Consumers Act 2023, which transposed Directive (EU) 2020/1828 into Irish law.

Following the lecture, an engaging Q&A session ensued, allowing participants to actively contribute to the discussion.