Global Class Actions

In France, large-scale collective actions (i.e., an accumulation of individual claims in the same court proceedings) have expanded in the automotive sector in recent years, contrary to class actions (defined as representative actions brought by an authorized association on behalf of at least two individuals). Class actions are not widespread due to the hurdles of the procedural route they imply. In this respect, 2024 was marked by an increase in product safety and liability claims against car manufacturers with respect to defective car equipment. 

In 2025, the litigation landscape in the automotive industry is expected to be affected by new EU legal reforms.  

First, the economic operators are required to comply with stricter regulatory and safety requirements under the new EU General Product Safety Regulation, which came into force on 13 December 2024. To be best prepared, the GPSR requirements must be properly anticipated and understood to take the appropriate measures and approach vis-à-vis the authorities, notably in case of product safety recalls. 

Second, the product liability rules were amended in a pro-consumer direction through the EU Directive (EU) 2024/2853 of 23 October 2024 on liability for defective products (PLD) that must be transposed into French law before 2026 in order to apply products placed on the market or put into service from 9 December 2026. The liability action has been simplified for the claimant, particularly with regard to access to evidence and proof of defect and the causal link. The scope of the product concerned and damage has been extended, as well as the circle of persons potentially responsible for the defect. This trend emphasizes the importance for economic operators to proactively assess and address potential product-related issues in order to mitigate legal risks.

Lastly, a new French bill reforming class actions and transposing the Directive (EU) 2020/1828 of 25 November 2020 has just been adopted by the French Parliament. A unified legal regime on class action is thus being implemented in 2025, but for the time being there is no certainty on whether the class action procedural route would become more attractive in practice. Yet, this confirms that companies should contemplate their potential litigation risks associated with class actions and collective actions even more closely than before.

Since they appeared on the French legislative landscape in 2016, health-related class actions have remained quite rare. This is notably due to the stringent conditions that must be met to qualify as a class action.

On this basis, 2024 has been an interesting year as the French Supreme Court was given the opportunity to redefine the contours of a health-related class action.

Under French law, class actions take place in two phases: the first concerns the admissibility of the action, the activation of liability, and the definition of the group, while the second phase focuses on the individual compensation of the claimants. The French Supreme Court ruled on May 2nd, 2024, that, in the case of a health-related class action, the judge in charge of procedural matters (before a ruling on the merits is contemplated) is competent to order an investigative measure, provided that such measure is limited to technical aspects that help clarify the issues this judge must address during the initial phase of the proceedings. 

This decision may thus result in an even longer first phase of health-related class actions due to the time needed for some investigations that may be necessary before analyzing the merits of the class action. Claimants wishing to receive swift compensation will likely continue to resort more often to another procedural path, e.g. collective action (i.e., an accumulation of individual claims in the same court proceedings). 

Although few health-related class actions have been initiated since 2016, the upcoming years could mark a turning point for class actions in the health sector.  

These past years have seen French plaintiffs’ Counsel slowly increasing their presence in the media and resorting to new commercial techniques such as class action websites. They see more opportunities in litigation funding, especially regarding foreign claimants bringing claims before the French Courts. With expanding visibility on social media, these Counsels can encourage thousands of individuals to initiate proceedings.  

The entry into force of Directive No. 2024/2853 on liability for defective products, the revision of the 1985 Product Liability Directive, which will apply to products placed on the market or put into service from 9 December 2026, will also contribute to a change in the landscape. This will broaden the list of professionals who may be held liable, introduce new criteria for assessing product defectiveness, and establish presumptions to facilitate the claimants’ access to evidence. This should therefore facilitate claimants’ actions, and thus potentially also class actions. 

So far, tech businesses have been relatively safe from representative class actions, while they could be targeted in the scope of different types of class actions (consumer, data, and environmental class actions). Out of the thirty-five class actions that were launched in France, only three were initiated against tech companies: two data class actions against an internet service provider and a social media, and a consumer class action against an online marketplace. The data class action initiated against the internet service provider was declared inadmissible in late 2024 by the Paris Judicial Court, which held that the association did not represent a class of data subjects in a similar situation. Whether more class actions will be brought against tech companies as a result of the transposition of EU Directive 2020/1828 into French law — currently being discussed in Parliament — and hence the extension of the scope of class actions to many areas of law remains to be seen. Rather than class actions, which are a very long route to compensation, the Plaintiffs' bar is currently targeting tech businesses in the scope of collective actions (i.e., an accumulation of individual claims in the same court proceedings) and one should expect to see more of that type of action than class actions, notably as they represent a more flexible procedural mechanism available whatever the issue at stake.

Because they operate globally, in both a very regulated and harmonized legal environment, tech businesses face a genuine litigation contagion risk. To best prepare, companies should monitor consumer associations and existing litigation at both domestic and EU levels to be able, when the time comes, to define a litigation strategy that can be easily declined in various jurisdictions, if not one strategy worldwide.

The 2024 automotive class action landscape was still dominated by cases related to emissions compliance, particularly Diesel litigation. The vast majority of claims continued to focus on alleged violations in emissions control systems regarding Euro 5 and Euro 6b vehicles, with plaintiffs seeking compensation for purported damages.

One major takeaway from the past year is that addressing lawsuits on an individualized basis has proven to be the most effective strategy. Given the unique factual and legal circumstances of each case, a tailored approach allows manufacturers to present stronger, case-specific arguments. This method enables OEMs to navigate litigation more efficiently and achieve favorable results.

Courts have adopted a more stringent stance against OEMs, particularly highlighted by the Federal Supreme Court’s landmark judgment of 25 September 2024 (Case No. VIa ZR 347/22). This ruling reinforces the trend of rigorous judicial examination, increasing the burden on defendants.

Looking ahead, 2025 is likely to see an increasing alignment of higher regional courts with the strict rulings of the Federal Court of Justice. As a result, case-specific arguments and individual legal strategies will become even more crucial for successful litigation.

Another important trend is the shift in litigation focus. While Diesel cases remain prevalent, there is a growing number of lawsuits concerning newer vehicle models, particularly Euro 6d-temp diesel vehicles and electric vehicles. 

How companies can best prepare:

For OEMs facing these challenges, working with a law firm that combines strong litigation expertise with deep regulatory knowledge is essential. As a law firm with extensive experience in high-stakes litigation and regulatory solutions, we are well-equipped to provide tailored defense strategies for our clients.

To stay ahead, companies should proactively assess compliance risks, develop case-specific legal strategies, and work with experienced counsel who understand both the evolving judicial landscape and technical automotive regulations. With the right legal approach, businesses can effectively manage litigation risks and adapt to the changing regulatory environment.

The landscape of consumer class actions in Germany has seen notable developments in 2024, particularly under the Consumer Rights Enforcement Act (VDUG). The number of class actions has increased, with seven actions now published in the register of representative actions (Verbandsklagenregister). These actions include the new possibility of bringing motions for redress rulings as well as the continued use of motions for declaratory rulings on liability. The rising  use of redress motions indicates a growing willingness among consumer associations to utilize these legal mechanisms and address consumer redress topics.

Consumer associations have also announced their exploration of new matters, although they have not yet initiated actions for all prospective matters. This proactive approach suggests that consumer associations are actively seeking to expand the scope of consumer protection and are likely to bring forward new cases in the future.

These developments highlight a dynamic shift towards more representative consumer advocacy, with associations leveraging the VDUG to hold companies accountable for consumer rights infringements. The increase in class actions reflects a broader trend of empowering consumers and enhancing their ability to seek collective redress by declaring their opt-in to these actions.

Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, several trends are poised to shape the consumer class action landscape in Germany. While the VDUG has facilitated several actions, there remains limited experience with certain features of the new procedure for redress (Abhilfeklage) in court. Key aspects to monitor include the effect of the extended consumer opt-in period beyond the hearing date, the potential for court-approved settlements after the ruling on the merits, and the enforcement procedure (Sachwalterverfahren).

Consumer associations with standing to sue have not yet fully expanded their actions to encompass the entire scope of Annex I of Directive (EU) 2020/1828. As the scope of potential actions in Germany is broader than the Directive, we may witness the emergence of new topics and subject matters. Additionally, the absence of cross-border interventions in VDUG matters thus far leaves open potential future developments in this area.

To prepare, companies should closely monitor pending class actions and assess whether similar claims could be asserted against them. Historically, many class actions have revisited topics previously addressed against other defendants. Companies should also pay attention to announcements by qualified plaintiffs regarding topics they are investigating or seeking concerned consumers for. Requests for cease-and-desist letters from consumer associations could serve as early warning signs of potential collective redress actions.

Furthermore, companies should be ready to manage the cumulative impact of various legal actions, including injunctive actions, individual consumer redress (potentially as mass litigation), and opt-in class actions. By staying vigilant and proactive, companies can better navigate the evolving legal landscape and mitigate potential risks associated with consumer class actions.

The 2024 legal landscape in Germany marks a shift with the introduction of actions for investor claims related to crypto assets under the MiCA Regulation. This expansion allows for claims concerning misleading or omitted information in crypto whitepapers, broadening the scope of financial market litigation.

Efforts to streamline legal procedures are evident, with measures such as shortened deadlines and an enhanced role for the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) in Capital Markets Model Case Proceedings. This court now has greater autonomy in determining the objectives of class action proceedings, potentially leading to more efficient case management.

A notable procedural change is the shift to an opt-in mechanism for suspending related proceedings, replacing the previous automatic suspension. This will enable a large number of parallel individual actions with double evidentiary hearings in all instances, which will massively increase the requirements for the orderly handling of mass proceedings and require robust legal strategies and possibly increased legal resources. In addition, the disclosure obligations will be tightened in line with “pre-trial discovery” in such matters.  

Finally, the relationship between class actions by consumer associations and in Capital Markets Model Case Proceedings has been clarified. These types of actions do not exclude each other when relating to the same subject matter.

Looking ahead, the digital transformation of legal processes will require companies to adapt to electronic documentation and communication. The use of electronic process tools and sharing with clients will be required to handle the complex proceedings. Investing in digital infrastructure and training for document disclosure will be essential for compliance and efficiency. Revisiting data management and confidentiality protocols will be vital to protect sensitive information.

At some point in 2025 or beyond we may see cases with an aggregate of Capital Market Model Case proceedings and consumer class action.

Since financial institutions have been in the focus of consumer class actions in Germany since their first implementation in 2018, we expect that consumer associations will continue to make use of the existing option to bring motions for declaratory judgments on consumer law infringements but will also make use of the now available option to bring motions for redress on behalf of consumers. Various cases were brought against banks regarding terms and conditions concerning interest rates, before the direct motion for redress was available to the plaintiffs.

Although the framework for collective redress has been gradually evolving, Germany has not yet seen widespread class actions for product liability in the healthcare sector. The key legal basis for class actions in Germany is the new consumer rights enforcement act (Verbraucherstreitbeilegungsgesetz (VDuG)), which implements EU Directive 2020/1828. This legislation facilitates representative actions for civil disputes involving large numbers of consumers against a company, including product liability claims. Art. 2 of EU Directive 2020/1828 specifically refers to class actions in lawsuits regarding EU Directive 85/374 (now EU Directive 2024/2853, Product Liability Directive (PLD)) and the Medical Device Regulation 2017/754 (MDR). 

In practice, the VDuG’s legal instruments have mainly been used in cases related to the energy and banking sectors since their implementation. Product liability claims involving claims for personal injury are, in our opinion, often not suitable for class action proceedings since they require detailed individual assessments when it comes to causality or individual damage. Also, the Action for Redress (Sec. 15 (1) sent. 1 VDuG) is only admissible if the claims of the consumers concerned by the action are essentially the same, which often does not apply to cases under the PLD. Further issues must be taken into account with respect to the interaction between the Action for Redress and the new PLD: For instance, the applicability of the presumption of causality (Art. 10 (3, 4) PLD) in class actions is questionable. Also, the defendant’s ability to refute the presumption (Art. 10 (5) PLD) cannot be determined without an evaluation of the individual case. This ambiguity raises questions about the suitability of class actions in such cases.

As we navigate the evolving landscape of class actions in the life sciences and healthcare sector, the year 2024 has brought significant developments in Germany. Here are the key takeaways and trends that companies should be aware of as we look toward 2025 and beyond: In 2024, Germany’s approach to class actions in the life sciences and healthcare sector remains distinct from other EU countries. Unlike jurisdictions where class actions for product liability claims, particularly for personal injury, are more common, Germany still relies on individual or mass proceedings to handle such cases. 

Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, with the growing prevalence of mass litigation, we are on the threshold of a wave of class actions that will require not only legal precision but also strategic risk management.

For companies, this means not only identifying mass-action risks in a timely manner but also proactively hedging them through compliance and precise contract drafting in order to minimize economic and reputational damage. Preventive strategies and close alignment between compliance and legal advice will be crucial not only to minimize risks but also to strengthen stakeholder trust in an increasingly demanding legal environment. 

To prepare for these developments, companies in the life sciences and healthcare sectors should focus on strengthening their internal processes for handling consumer claims, complaints, and potential litigation. This also includes ensuring transparency in product information and improving the management of customer relationships. Companies should also closely monitor legal developments, particularly related to EU directives and evolving case law on product liability and causality, to ensure they remain compliant and can respond proactively to future legal challenges. In this context, it is particularly vital to monitor the impact of the new PLD on class actions, especially with regard to the issues outlined above. Since the PLD must be implemented by December 2026, it remains to be seen how national law will change in this regard, in particular German Product Liability Law (Produkthaftungsgesetz), and what impact this will have on mass litigation in product liability cases in Germany. 

The automotive industry in Italy has been among the major targets of consumer associations. Class actions against car manufacturers/distributors in Italy have primarily focused on issues related to emissions, safety recalls and defects, consumer rights and misleading advertising and antitrust and competition issues.

In 2024, perhaps the most prominent class action involving a car manufacturer in Italy is the one brought by six consumer associations against a multinational corporation for damages allegedly caused by a delayed recall campaign of defective airbags. This will likely be a landmark case because of the quite complex procedural issues arising following the interconnection of different proceedings seeking both injunctive and redress measures under the two different sets of rules under the civil procedure code and the consumer code. 

The above case has shown that the increased scrutiny over the regulatory obligations of the economic operators regarding product safety and compliance may likely generate litigation by consumers and consumer associations, notably through the recourse to class action/representative actions mechanisms. The damage more often sought is not the one suffered for personal injuries caused by unsafe/defective vehicles or components, but rather the one related to the delayed or incomplete recall campaign. This makes it easier to have the class certified as meeting the requirement of homogenous rights and exposes economic operators in the automotive industry to higher litigation risks. To mitigate those risks, economic operators should enhance traceability of the corrective measures implemented, including recall campaigns, to substantiate and document the risk assessment carried out and the decision process followed so as to show full compliance with all regulatory obligations.

We may expect that the challenges that the automotive industry is facing may generate increased litigation risks in 2025 and beyond, which are related not only to consumer protection/product liability matters but also to a variety of legal issues including cases involving allegations of anti-competitive practices, such as cartels, market manipulation, or abuse of dominant market positions. On 1 April 2025, the European Commission announced that it issued fines totaling €458 million against 15 car manufacturers and the European Automobiles Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) for their involvement in a cartel concerning end-of-life vehicle recycling. We may expect a new wave of private enforcement litigation will follow, likely pursued by consumers and consumer associations through the recourse to class action mechanisms that contain several pro-plaintiff provisions, including those easing the claimant’s burden of proof (i.e. use of statistical data and presumptions, as well as the disclosure order).

Some of those provisions overlap with the ones set by the Italian law implementing the EU directive on antitrust damages. We may also expect consumer associations will continue pursuing the safety recalls and product defects-related litigation. A consumer association has recently announced that, following initiatives taken by other consumer associations in Spain and France, a new class action will be launched to seek injunctive and redress measures for damage allegedly suffered as a result of defects of the ignition system. Moreover, the implementation in Italy of the new product liability directive containing several pro-plaintiff provisions will further boost the litigation in this space. The best way to prepare for this evolving landscape is to set up an effective risk mitigation strategy through a continued analysis of the litigation risks at every phase of the product cycle to be carried out in coordination by the several business functions of the company (i.e. R&D, quality, marketing, regulatory, communication and legal). 

The consumer class action landscape in Italy witnessed significant developments in 2024, with a notable increase in the number of cases, thanks to the activisms of some consumer associations and the new European legal regime on class and representative actions (fully implemented in Italy), which made these tools more accessible than in the past.

Based on available data, 34 class and representative actions have been filed in 2024 (16 more than in 2023). Half of these cases affect the consumer sector, and the majority were representative actions regarding:

1.    Unfair contractual terms. Several actions targeted car rental companies and banks, challenging the use of allegedly unfair terms in their standard agreements, as well as companies offering digital and audiovisual media services and telecommunications providers. 

2.    Breach of contract. A consumer association sued a cruise line operator for a change in the itinerary and asked for compensatory measures, including ticket price reimbursement.

3.    Defective products. A representative class action was brought against a car manufacturing company by a consumer association, which asked for both injunctive and compensatory measures. 

As to class actions (for damage compensation or injunction) filed in 2024 in the consumer sector, the available data show an interest in:

4.    Greenwashing practices, where a food company has been accused of misleading advertising by falsely marketing its products as environmentally friendly.

5.    Defective products, especially in the life sciences and automotive industry, with requests for damage compensation and injunction against product distribution.

6.   Energy and gas supply, where some users sued an energy and gas supplier for unjustified monetary charges.

7.    Fintech and security measures, where two different companies have been sued for damage compensation due to the alleged malfunctioning of the platform and failure to implement adequate authentication measures. 

Most of these cases are still pending, except for those reported as “terminated” on the Ministry of Justice‘s website and which have probably been settled. Representative actions seem to be faster than class actions: three of the reported representative actions against car rental companies have been upheld on the merits in the first instance and the appeals are now pending; one has been declared admissible and is pending on the merit, while two class actions launched in previous years have been dismissed in the first instance and no one so far has been upheld on the merits. 

There are no factors suggesting that the trends of recent years will not continue in the immediate future, with a constant increase of class actions, and especially of representative actions, in the consumer sector. The activism of consumer associations seems to lead towards targeting consumer credit companies and utility companies (e.g., telecommunications, gas, electricity), which are often called to respond to requests for injunctions regarding unfair terms and conditions and misleading commercial practices.  

Although still underrated in Italy, ESG is expected to break into the class action soon, as testified by a class action for an injunction on greenwashing launched in 2024 by a consumer association. Consumer association activism may also combine with shareholder activism, and class actions by shareholders for ESG purposes may couple with similar actions for consumer protection.

The acceleration we are experiencing in recent years in terms of technological development will certainly also impact the landscape of class actions, with a possible increase in claims for damages for data breaches and platform blackouts (a few cases already existing on this) and possible cases of so-called AI or tech-washing (i.e., a communication strategy aimed at the overstatement or misrepresentation of the AI or tech tools governing processes and/or services offered by a certain company).

Considering this scenario, for companies that may be targeted by a class action, preparation is essential, yet not simple. 

First, companies should put their best efforts into monitoring and ensuring the company's compliance with regulations and standards protecting consumers, data privacy, defective products, and any area of the company's operations that is structurally more prone to lead to collective litigation.

Second, recent experience shows that there is seriality even in class actions: representative bodies often proceed methodically, identifying a sensitive issue in a certain market area and targeting the companies operating in that market one after another. Maintaining a high level of vigilance and knowledge of the class action landscape, even with the help of external consultants, to be engaged preferably before it is too late, certainly helps to anticipate the emergence of collective litigation.

Third, it is common (and in some cases even required by law) that, before initiating a class action, a dialogue between the parties is established (especially in the case of representative actions). A careful assessment of costs and benefits often allows for the prevention or amicable resolution of disputes, avoiding the significant costs of a collective proceeding (not only in terms of passive claims but also of attorney fees, court expenses, publication of the judgment - often ordered by courts - in national newspapers or expensive campaigns of individual communication to users/customers).

Fourth, although discovery is not possible in Italy, collective redress mechanisms allow a wider disclosure of documents for which companies should prepare in advance of the litigation. 

In 2024, Italy witnessed a significant surge in representative actions targeting the financial sector. This trend can be largely attributed to the growing activism of consumer associations, which have embraced the European-inspired legal framework on representative action (more accessible and less cumbersome compared to the national class action system introduced in Italy in 2019).

Based on available data, 34 class and representative actions have been filed in 2024 (16 more than in 2023). Half of these cases affect the financial sector, and the majority were representative actions launched by consumer associations in areas related to consumer credit and surety guarantees. As to consumer credit, several representative actions were filed in response to financial companies failing to reimburse or reduce "upfront" costs to users in case of early repayment of the loans, seeking both an injunction and compensatory relief. As to surety guarantees, the number of actions increased following the interim measure obtained by a consumer association from the Court of First Instance of Turin (temporarily upholding the alleged abusive nature of certain terms and conditions of surety guarantees model agreements), which triggered similar actions against other banks (especially with business in the Turin area).  

As to class actions filed in the financial sector in 2024, the available data show an interest in:

1.  The fintech sector, where users sued a cryptocurrency exchange platform for damages caused by alleged platform malfunctions.

2.  Digital payment institutions, accused of unfair commercial practices for false advertising, promising fees not outlined in their general terms and conditions.

3.  Security measures, with claims against companies that failed to implement adequate authentication measures to protect credit card transactions and safeguard users.

Most of these cases are still pending, except those reported as “terminated” on the Ministry of Justice‘s website and that have been probably settled. One class action has been dismissed on lack of jurisdiction and is currently at the appeal stage, while no class or representative action has been so far upheld on the merits. 

Early 2025 indicators suggest that the trends of recent years will not continue in the immediate future, with a constant increase of class actions, and especially of representative actions, in the finance industry sector. The activism of consumer associations seems to lead toward targeting financial institutions for unfair contractual terms and misleading commercial practices with specific respect to surety guarantees and costs associated with consumer credit. Although more traditional banking and payment services are currently affected by collective redress campaigns, financial and insurance services are far from safe. Security class actions may be the new frontier, and the involvement of companies’ directors cannot be excluded (as also testified by one pending class action). In addition:

a)  The acceleration we are experiencing in recent years in terms of technological development will certainly also impact the landscape of class actions, with a possible increase in claims for damages for data breaches and platform blackouts (a few class actions already exist in the specific finance sector) and possible cases of so-called AI- or tech-washing (i.e., a communication strategy aimed at the overstatement or misrepresentation of the AI or tech tools governing processes and/or services offered by a certain company). 

b)  The risk of ESG and labor class actions, also in the financial sector, should not be underestimated. Although ESG is still underrated in Italy and labor litigation tends to unfit the homogeneity required by collective redress mechanisms, class and representative actions of this kind have been already brought across other industry sectors, and we cannot exclude that the finance industry may be involved in the future (especially if major disruptive events occur). 

Considering this scenario and the wide scope of application of the new laws on class and representative actions, for companies that may be targeted by such actions, preparation is essential, yet not simple. 

First, companies should put their best efforts into monitoring and ensuring the company's compliance with regulations and standards protecting investors, data privacy, and any area of the company's operations that is structurally more prone to lead to collective litigation.

Second, recent experience shows that there is seriality even in class actions: representative bodies often proceed methodically, identifying a sensitive issue in a certain market area and targeting the companies operating in that market one after another. Maintaining a high level of vigilance and knowledge of the class action landscape, even with the help of external consultants, to be engaged preferably before it is too late, certainly helps to anticipate the emergence of collective litigation.

Third, it is common (and in some cases even required by law) that before initiating a class action, a dialogue between the parties is established (especially in the case of representative actions). A careful assessment of costs and benefits often allows for the prevention or amicable resolution of disputes, avoiding the significant costs of a collective proceeding (not only in terms of passive claims but also of attorney fees, court expenses publication of the judgment - often ordered by courts - in national newspapers or expensive campaigns of individual communication to users/customers).

Fourth, although discovery is not possible in Italy, collective redress mechanisms allow a wider disclosure of documents for which companies should prepare in advance of the litigation. 

Despite Italy being among the EU jurisdictions having implemented a quite complex class actions legal framework (with two different, although interconnected sets of rules), the number of class actions brought in Italy, notably against life sciences companies, is very limited. Only two class actions, both brought against medical device companies, have been certified since the first law on class actions entered into force in 2008. Consumer associations have rather chosen mass tort litigation (i.e., grouped actions) to bring claims against life sciences companies. One of the above-mentioned two class actions was brought in 2024 by two consumer associations to seek compensation for damages suffered as a result of the delayed implementation of a recall campaign of an allegedly defective medical device.

This is a leading case not only due to the cause of action introduced (i.e. compensation for damage allegedly caused by a delayed recall campaign), but also and most importantly because of the type of procedure pursued, i.e. the interim injunctive relief with the application of penalties set forth by the Italian civil procedure rules as a way to obtain monetary redress without substantiating any damage possibly suffered by the members of the class. Indeed, through the interim injunctive relief proceedings, consumer associations may seek a Court’s order imposing upon the defendant a deadline to complete the recall campaign. Violation of such a deadline may trigger the application of penalties to be paid to the consumer associations. The above case has paved the way for consumer associations to use the class actions mechanism more effectively, notably seeking injunctive relief, which may trigger the application of penalties. Already in 2024, we have seen consumer associations following the same path in litigation involving other industries. 

We may expect that in 2025 and beyond life science businesses will be involved not only in consumer protection/product liability litigation but also in relation to a variety of legal issues including cases involving allegations of anti-competitive practices, such as price-fixing, market manipulation, or abuse of dominant market positions, as well as breaches of patient data privacy or inadequate data security measures. All those cases will likely be pursued through the recourse to class action mechanisms.

Indeed, both the class action regime under the civil procedure code and the representative actions rules under the consumer code recently adopted contain several pro-plaintiff provisions including those easing the claimant’s burden of proof (i.e. use of statistic data and presumptions, as well as the disclosure order), which could encourage the recourse to class actions. Moreover, consumers and consumer associations will increasingly look at the way in which economic operations (e.g., manufacturers, importers, distributors) implement recall campaigns in case of product defects or non-compliance to seek redress through class actions and/or representative actions, both injunctive and on the merits.

Recent cases have shown that this will be a major battleground. Indeed, both regulators and judges increasingly scrutinize how economic operators assess the safety risk, identify and implement the necessary corrective measures. In this respect, the new product liability directive, once implemented in Italy, will allow judges to infer the defect of a product also from the fact that the product was subject to recall campaigns, even voluntary. An effective risk mitigation strategy should be based on a thorough analysis of the litigation risks at every phase of the product cycle. To this purpose, the different business functions (i.e., R&D, quality, marketing, regulatory, communication, and legal) should constantly collaborate. 

The current class action system, regulated in the Civil Procedure Act, for the protection of an identifiable group of consumers (i.e., collective interests) or a group of consumers that cannot be individually identified (i.e., diffuse interests), is complex from a procedural standpoint and takes a very long time to process, so entities with legal standing are not making significant use of this mechanism so far.

However, the main Association of Consumers and Users (OCU) has filed seven class actions against OEMs deriving from the so-called Vehicle Manufacturers Cartel, exercising follow-on damage claims.

As an example of the impracticalities of the current system, six of the class actions filed articulate claims for the defense of diffuse interests (for the benefit of an indeterminate group of consumers), whereas one action has been formulated for the defense of collective interests (to the benefit of determined consumers).

Being the same case (i.e., follow-on claims for damages arising from an anti-competitive infringement), this duality should not be possible: either the interests protected are diffuse (indetermined) or they are collective interests (determined).

Hence, an immediate implementation of the Directive would be desirable.

The draft bill, republished 14 March 2025, is exactly the same proposal that was withdrawn in 2024 due to a lack of consensus in parliament. It remains to be seen whether this time (even though the text has not changed), there is a parliamentary majority to approve the proposed text.

The draft bill provides for an opt-out system (as a general rule) and foresees the possibility of litigation funding. In our view, considering the limited use of the previous class action mechanism due to the aforementioned inconveniences, the new system, after the Directive is implemented (through the draft bill or otherwise), should lead to a notable increase in class actions in Spain.

The most relevant areas in which class actions could be brought could be financial litigation (claims for lack of transparency, abusive practices and/or usury in the financing of vehicles), antitrust litigation (claims for cartels and other infringements such as abuses of dominant position), product liability litigation and data security breaches.

The best way to prepare is to anticipate by analyzing and, where appropriate, correcting possible contracts, actions, products, etc. that could end up giving rise to class actions. Subsequently, it will be important to implement measures to preserve evidence and, of course, to obtain appropriate legal advice from experts in class actions.  

Our Madrid office is representing clients in class actions in financial litigation and antitrust litigation matters, so we are prepared to advise on any pre-litigation or litigation situation. 

Automotive class actions gained even more prominence in 2024.  

The ongoing Pan-NOx Emissions Group Litigation, where the court is collectively managing 13 separate group actions, brought by over 1.5 million claimants against thousands of defendants in the automotive industry, was among the highest-profile litigation in the UK in 2024. And it wasn't just in relation to diesel emissions that automotive manufacturers faced collective actions in this jurisdiction. Class actions have been brought or threatened across a range of other issues, from safety defects to vehicle finance, often with closely-linked claims brought in other jurisdictions.     

The automotive industry has been a key target for claimant lawyers over the last few years and businesses continue to be at risk. 

Looking ahead, we see no let-up for the automotive industry. We anticipate considerable collective action litigation arising in relation to energy transition and electric vehicles, the incorporation of complex AI into vehicles (and the developing legal and regulatory framework around this), and further emissions-related and greenwashing claims.  

The Supreme Court will soon hand down its key decision on commissions for car finance brokers, which could produce significant class actions litigation in the coming years.  

Collective actions inevitably follow any regulatory interventions, and we expect that trend to continue in 2025. Claimant firms pay close attention to the automotive industry, and UK regulators are becoming increasingly active in this area. This will translate into more proceedings in this jurisdiction. Close monitoring of regulatory and political developments will be essential. Companies must ensure compliance programs are robust and can adapt quickly as laws, regulatory risks, and market conditions change. 

The English consumer class action landscape has experienced continued growth during 2024. This can partly be attributed to the growing availability and sophistication of litigation funding, enabling more consumers and claimant firms to pursue collective redress. Activism by consumer advocacy groups in a range of areas, sometimes on a pan-European basis, has also contributed to the expansion of consumer class action claims. Many groups in England and Europe collaborate in relation to the enforcement of consumer protection law. The English landscape is also — and inevitably — influenced by developments in the US. 

The English courts have a range of innovative and flexible mechanisms for the management of such claims. The goal includes trying to manage the burden that consumer claims create for the judicial system and the overall legal costs involved in bringing and defending such claims. Throughout 2024, we have seen developments in a broad range of consumer claims managed under Group Litigation Orders (GLOs), 'same interest' representative actions, as well as Collective Proceedings Order (CPOs) before the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) (usually on an 'opt-out' basis).

The use of the CAT is increasingly popular for consumer claims that allege an abuse of market dominance by the defendants. 2024 was not without its setbacks for claimants. Defendants defeated the first opt-out consumer class action to reach judgment; a litigation funder tried unsuccessfully to block a £200m settlement of a consumer class action whose headline value was £10bn. The English courts also provided some welcome guidance on the operation of representative actions.  

The use of group proceedings — the relatively recently introduced procedural regime — took off in Scotland in 2024, with a series of consumer greenwashing claims against diesel manufacturers proceeding.

Collective actions will continue to rise, as will third-party funding of consumer claims. England's legal and procedural framework increasingly supports different mechanisms that enable collective redress and the number of such cases will continue to increase. 

We anticipate significant group litigation under the recent Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, which significantly expands consumer protection law in this jurisdiction, which could be in the CAT under CPOs, or added to claims managed under GLOs. The English government is reviewing our domestic product safety regulation framework in the context of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill. More rights may soon accrue to consumers, and with them, more angles to bring collective actions. 

Litigation funders' assets are increasing, with market participation from a wider pool of participants. The English courts are a center for environmental claims against businesses. 

As AI functions become increasingly integrated with consumer products and services, and the UK begins to establish and clarify the regulatory framework, we expect a new category of consumer collective action to emerge.

2024 saw a number of key developments in the UK class action landscape for financial institutions, which continue to shape this evolving risk area for the industry.

Competition class actions remain a prominent risk for financial institutions, particularly with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) having the only opt-out regime in the UK. In 2024, one of the most high-profile and longest-running such claims, brought by consumer campaigner Walter Merricks against a major credit card provider on behalf of 44 million UK consumers, reached an approved settlement. This claim was brought on an opt-out basis and originally sought damages totaling over £14 billion. After a number of preliminary rulings by the Court narrowed the scope of the claim, the parties agreed to settle for £200m.   

More generally, the resolution of this case highlighted the relationship between UK claimants and their litigation funders, with Mr. Merricks’ funders are challenging the settlement on the basis it did not represent a just and reasonable outcome. While expressing a view that the sum was ‘disappointing’, the CAT approved the settlement despite the funder’s objections. This illustrates the tension that can exist between claimants and their funders around the control of litigation, which in this case seems to have resulted in a lower payout by the financial institution than the funder would have accepted.

2024 also witnessed the English Court's increasing flexibility in the management of multi-claimant actions. Several new Group Litigation Orders (GLOs) were approved in claims relating to diesel emissions, some of which involve claims against finance companies. However, the novel "Pan-NOx" structure that the Court has instigated, involving the common case management of 13 separate GLOs and a series of focused trials, means that the financing aspects of the claims are unlikely to be considered for some time. No other GLOs relating to financial services were made in 2024.  

On the contrary, the Court rejected an application for a GLO in respect of claims against a number of financial institutions relating to Payment Protection Insurance policies that were sold on a commission basis. The Court was not persuaded that the procedural ‘super-structure’ of a GLO would deliver any cost savings, and was unattracted by the claimants’ argument that consumers with low-value claims would lose access to justice. This reflects a maturing of the English Court’s ability and readiness to case manage ‘omnibus claims', that is, single claim forms naming a large number of claimants, outside the formal GLO framework.  

This ‘omnibus claim’ approach was recently considered and endorsed in the context of eight claims brought by (in aggregate) several thousand borrowers against motor finance lenders. Whilst such claims can be viable, they cannot operate on an ‘opt in’/‘opt out’ basis and contain no mechanism to deal with ‘tag along’ claims where claimants have no obligation to contribute to a funder’s costs.  

Finally, claims by shareholders against issuers of listed securities for misleading, false or delayed statements or omissions under ss.90/90A Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 may be impacted by the 2024 judgment in the action against Glencore, which ruled that a company generally could, contrary to long-standing practice, assert privilege as against its own shareholder. That would likely make the pursuit of such claims more challenging for claimants. While this decision may otherwise have gone on appeal, the issue of shareholder privilege was heard by the Privy Council in another case in March 2025, with judgment now awaited, and in the meantime, uncertainty remains.

We expect many of these trends to continue through 2025.

The litigation funding market, which is a key component of the viability of class actions against financial institutions, particularly by consumers, faces various uncertainties heading into this year. Draft legislation to confirm the enforceability of common third-party funding arrangements fell away before it could be brought into force when the 2024 general election was called. The new government has said it will now await the outcome of a review undertaken by the Civil Justice Council into litigation funding more generally, which is expected to report in summer 2025, so that it can take "a more comprehensive view". It is anticipated that this may lead to more formal regulation of the litigation funding sector, which has to date been largely self-regulating. 

A Supreme Court decision on lender commission arrangements in the motor finance sector is one to watch out for in 2025, after a Court of Appeal decision in late 2024 drove a significant volume of complaints and threatened claims. Firms will want to consider carefully arrangements that may be characterised as commission payments in light of the awaited judgment and emerging complaint patterns. There also remains an ongoing FCA review that may lead to remediation activity — and potentially to further challenge. 

The risk of ESG-related class actions also looms large for financial institutions, particularly with ever-evolving EU and UK disclosure requirements and the FCA's recent Anti-Greenwashing Rule. With sustainability and good corporate behaviour remaining high on the political and legal agenda, added to consumer and investor expectations, the greenwashing risk is real and one that could be ripe for multi-claimant actions against firms.

Outside formal litigation, the UK Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has seen significant and increasing volumes of representative-driven complaints against financial services firms. The UK government is conducting a review of how ‘mass redress’ events are dealt with, and FOS has already introduced a revised funding model that imposes fees on represented complainants. This will be closely watched, and claimant firms (and their funders) will be considering whether litigation might become relatively more attractive if there are further changes to how FOS operates. That may give rise to further pursuit of group actions in the consumer finance arena, where low-value individual claims can be uneconomic for representatives.

As the UK class action landscape continues to mature, 2025 is likely to be a year of further change.

Significant collective actions against life sciences companies have been a main pillar of the UK litigation landscape for decades. These have targeted a broad range of products over the years: from vaccines to blood products and orthopedics to antidepressants. While there has been a rapid expansion of other forms of class action in the UK, facilitated by a growing ecosystem of specialist claimant law firms and litigation funders, the steady stream of claims against life sciences businesses has remained relatively constant, including in 2024.  

While many of the new wave of consumer and competition claims are supported by a litigation funder, the life sciences claims tend not to be. They often represent a more significant financial investment, and therefore risk, for the claimant firms willing to take them on. But there are plenty of claimant firms willing to do so. Any widely used product for which there is a suggestion of a new side-effect, or that is subject to a recall, is at risk of becoming the next target of claimant firms. 

Life sciences products will continue to be a natural area of focus for claimant firms in 2025 and beyond, particularly as areas of technological innovation bring new areas of risk. For example, new weight-loss drugs are being widely used and receiving a great deal of publicity, so claimant firms will be watching closely. Also, as AI tools become increasingly integrated into life sciences products and services, and as those products and services become more widely available, we expect claimant firms to identify additional areas of opportunity in which to try and initiate claims. 

We have seen many claims brought using the formal opt-in ‘group litigation’ procedure in the life sciences sector (GLOs). However, it is also an area where the English court has shown willingness to use its wide case management powers to find alternative, informal mechanisms for handling group claims (sometimes called a ‘GLO-lite’ procedure). This is often because claimant numbers, while still significant, do not reach a level where the additional costs added by the full group litigation mechanism are proportionate. These claims still represent material risk and expense for defendants. For defendants, the absence of a GLO (or other formal grouping of the claims) can be helpful in trying to demonstrate that there is no true common issue across the claims. The trend towards ‘GLO-lite’ structures seems likely to continue into 2025 and beyond.

In 2024, we saw a continued rise in consumer class actions, with contamination cases remaining at the forefront. These lawsuits have hit various consumer industries, including food, household, and personal products. Particular attention continues to focus on PFAS chemicals, a class of synthetic chemicals used in a variety of industrial and consumer products. Although Plaintiffs’ lawyers have been suing over PFAS for years, the earlier litigations were environmental contamination cases. In recent years, as regulations and awareness of PFAS have expanded, so too have the companies and industries targeted and the types of PFAS-related claims asserted. Consumer activists and certain plaintiffs’ law firms have initiated aggressive campaigns to test entire categories of consumer products, apparel, cosmetics, beverages, and food packaging materials for the presence of PFAS and expose the results. Lawsuits have quickly followed. Today, if PFAS are found in a company’s finished product — even in trace amounts and/or as an unintentional consequence of environmental contamination — the company is at risk of litigation. 

Typically, plaintiffs allege that a product’s label was false or misleading because the product contains PFAS but was marketed as “all natural,” “safe,” “sustainable,” or “free of toxic chemicals,” among other representations. Many PFAS plaintiffs rely on testing co-opted from third-party sources (e.g., Consumer Reports, bloggers, non-profit organizations), while others conduct independent testing through third-party labs. These testing results may be influenced by contamination during the testing or sampling process or by interference from non-PFAS substances that can mimic a positive PFAS result. The results often suggest that products were subject to inadvertent PFAS contamination during the manufacturing process or afterwards. In fact, many companies faced with this litigation are unaware that their products contain PFAS.  

These claims survive motions to dismiss in many cases so far. For example, in a class action alleging that anti-fog spray was marketed as “safe for use” even though it purportedly contained PFAS, the court held that whether a reasonable consumer would interpret those representations as relating to PFAS was a question of fact that could not be resolved at the motion to dismiss stage. Recently, courts are more likely to grant a motion to dismiss for lack of standing if a plaintiffs fail to allege that they tested their own purchases for PFAS, directly.

Consumer class actions based on alleged product contamination, such as PFAS, lead, and other heavy metals, continue to be a focus of the Plaintiffs’ Bar. In addition, several ingredient class action lawsuits have been filed alleging that companies are misleading consumers by claiming their products are “natural” or “preservative-free” when they are alleged to contain unnatural ingredients such as ascorbic or citric acid. Given the risk of contamination/ingredient litigation, companies should conduct a review of all labelling, marketing, and commercial claims to ensure that they are truthful, not misleading, not deceptive, and have adequate substantiation/support. Be mindful of PFAS-related claims. Consumer companies should also require suppliers to provide certifications that PFAS is not used in the manufacture of their products and consider whether it is appropriate to require suppliers to conduct periodic testing. Finally, consumer companies should consider testing raw materials and/or finished products as part of the quality system, and take steps to remove or warn as appropriate.

There were no significant class action rulings in 2024 for financial institutions in particular, but plenty of action. 

In Cantero v. Bank of America, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the question of whether the National Bank Act (NBA) — the statute under which U.S. national banks are chartered, as opposed to their state and non-chartered counterparts — preempts state law was not affected by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, and continues to require a “nuanced, comparative analysis” of how the state law affects the bank’s activities. In declining to broaden the scope of preemption, the Supreme Court effectively maintained the current applicability of state-law claims — often pursued in a putative class action setting — and thus ensured national banks would have to continue to fight those cases.

In a major securities class action involving a financial institution, the Second Circuit reconsidered and reversed its own prior precedent concerning claims involving auditor opinions, holding this year that standardized language in auditor opinions may be material to investors. The decision, while important across sectors, creates additional risk around audit disclosures commonly used for and by financial institutions.

2024 also continued to see a trend of class actions challenging the enforceability of arbitration agreements, largely within the context of employment disputes with employees and claims from retail banking consumers, ranging across products such as mortgage and credit card services. Mandatory arbitration clauses remained a robust defense against class actions, with motions to compel arbitration prevailing at a high rate of success across the federal courts.

With the growing issue of data privacy in an ever-technological world, financial institutions have been targeted in data breach putative class actions stemming from their presence and provision of services online.

Finally, the growing trend of ESG-related and “greenwashing” claims against companies, largely in the class-action space, affected financial institutions, whose profile and disclosures make them a potentially attractive target. 

Amidst this shifting landscape, we can expect to see a continued increase in data privacy class actions, based on the meteoric rise in data-breach suits filed by plaintiffs in 2024. In the absence of a federal statute that would regulate data privacy uniformly across the United States, eight states are poised to enact data privacy laws in 2025, and we expect putative class actions utilizing these laws to be pursued with vigor. 

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the issue of class certification for Rule 23(b)(3) damages classes that include class members without an injury. The Court’s ruling in Davis will greatly affect the potential exposure to damages faced by financial institutions, depending on the extent to which the Court allows for certified classes to include uninjured class members.

The issue of expert evidence admissibility at the class certification stage is also anticipated to develop further this year. Currently, some circuits require a Daubert analysis of admissibility before involvement within class certification proceedings, whereas others proceed on a limited, or otherwise flexible, analysis. 

We also expect applications of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overruled the longstanding Chevron framework of affording deference to reasonable federal agency interpretations of ambiguous statutory provisions. This is likely to afford defendant financial institutions a broader range of strategies to rebut unfavorable statutory interpretations by regulatory bodies and attempts by plaintiffs to leverage such interpretations.

Finally, in addition to the growth in “greenwashing” claims, we anticipate an increase in “AI washing claims” (that is, claims that a company’s statements regarding its artificial intelligence programs were false or misleading in some way) in 2025, including against financial institutions

In 2024, we saw several important shifts regarding life sciences and health care litigation. First, we saw some strong results for the preemption defense in Life Sciences litigation, particularly in the consumer protection class action context. For example, in the In re Oral Phenylephrine Marketing and Sales Practice Litigation MDL, we, on behalf of client RB Health US LLC, and our co-defendants obtained an important win at the motion to dismiss stage on over-the-counter preemption grounds. There, after an FDA advisory committee voted in September 2023 that oral phenylephrine (a common in ingredient in over-the-counter cold and flu medications) is not effective as a nasal decongestant, plaintiffs began filing consumer class action lawsuits across the country bringing claims for fraudulent and deceptive marketing practices under state consumer protection statutes, even though the OTC product monograph mandates or authorizes virtually all of the statements the plaintiffs challenged as false or misleading. The defendants filed a joint motion to dismiss in a “test case” involving New York law and federal civil RICO, arguing, among other things, that the plaintiffs’ claims were expressly preempted by the express preemption provision of the FDCA’s OTC regulations. On October 29, 2024, the Court granted the motion, concluding that all of the plaintiffs’ state law claims are expressly preempted by the OTC monograph and federal regulations. While Plaintiffs are now appealing the decision and FDA subsequently announced that it is proposing to remove oral phenylephrine as an active ingredient for relevant products, this nevertheless is a strong OTC preemption decision and is a rare win on an early dispositive motion in the MDL class action setting. 

We also experienced similar recent success in the District of Massachusetts for client AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the manufacturer of Makena, a progestin hormone treatment that was indicated to reduce the risk of preterm birth in certain pregnancies. In April 2023, the FDA withdrew Makena’s approval after a confirmatory study failed to confirm the drug’s efficacy. Shortly thereafter, an Ohio-based health and welfare fund filed a class action asserting claims under RICO and several dozen state consumer protection laws on behalf of a nationwide class of insurers and other third-party payors who purchased or paid for Makena prior to the withdrawal, arguing that AMAG should have stopped marketing the drug once the study results were released. We moved to dismiss, and the Court found all of Plaintiffs’ claims preempted by federal law – because the challenged marketing statements were consistent with Makena’s FDA-approved labeling, AMAG could not have used the FDA’s Changes Being Effective (CBE) process to unilaterally change the label to remove Makena’s only approved indication, and AMAG was not required to stop marketing the product prior to the FDA’s withdrawal of that approval. The Court also held that the named plaintiff, as an indirect purchaser, lacked statutory standing under RICO and failed to plead its fraud-based claims with the requisite particularity under Rule 9(b).

Two additional important shifts in class action litigation involve the numerosity and adequacy requirements for class certification under Rule 23. Typically, classes with over 40 class members meet Rule 23’s numerosity requirement. However, in the In re: EpiPen Direct Purchaser Litigation decision in the District of Minnesota, the district court declined to certify an antitrust and RICO class with over 40 members because it found that joinder was not impracticable. This follows recent precedent in the Third Circuit, taking a similar approach. The In re EpiPen decision also demonstrates that courts may be unwilling to certify a class where some putative class members ultimately benefit from the alleged conduct at issue in the lawsuit. In the In re EpiPen case, the Court found that joinder was not impracticable after holding that (1) there is no presumption that numerosity is satisfied just because the putative class exceeds 40 members; and (2) the individual class members had damages large enough to justify non-class treatment, particularly where a staggering 93% of the total damages were attributable to three absent class members. This is a significant development because it demonstrates that class certification may be denied even in classes with more than 40 members. On adequacy, the Court found that there were conflicts between the class representatives and absent members because some absent members benefited from the conduct that was alleged to have caused harm. On this point, the Court rejected Plaintiff’s Hanover Shoe and Illinois Brick arguments that it is irrelevant whether a direct purchaser ultimately benefits from the alleged harm, noting that Hanover Shoe and Illinois Brick do not apply to Rule 23. This is a noteworthy ruling because it means that a defendant may be able to challenge the inclusion of plaintiffs in the class who ultimately benefit from the alleged conduct. 

In January 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to answer a hotly-contested question in class action litigation, which will have substantial impact throughout the life sciences U.S. litigation space: “Whether a federal court may certify a class action pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) when some members of the proposed class lack any Article III injury.” The answer to that question has been the subject of intense litigation, especially in consumer and other class actions affecting pharmaceutical and other life sciences companies, and there is currently a three-way circuit split over the issue. The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case (Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, dba Labcorp v. Luke Davis, et al., Case No. 22-55873) on April 29, 2025, during which the justices asked several questions about procedural issues associated with the various orders in the trial court related to the class definition.  If the Supreme Court moves beyond those procedural issues and addresses the merits of what is required for class certification, its decision may significantly impact cases where, for one reason or another, there is reason to believe that some members of the proposed class are not injured within the meaning of Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

In 2024, there was an increase in AI-related lawsuits, with several actions challenging the training of AI models on copyrighted content. There are now close to 40 lawsuits (the majority of which are putative class actions) alleging violations of copyright law for training and deploying AI models using copyrighted works. 

Website operators also continued to face a wave of litigation based on the use of alleged web “tracking” technologies, including pixels, beacons, cookies, and software development kits (SDKs). Notably, even more suits have been filed alleging that these technologies violate the decades-old pen register and trap and trace device provisions of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) (CIPA § 638.51) by capturing incoming electronic information, such as website users’ IP addresses and other basic device information that identifies the originating source of that information or outgoing information. Courts are grappling with how to interpret these statutory provisions, as plaintiffs seek to repurpose old laws in a novel and new context. We are also beginning to see other website technology suits — particularly asserting claims under the wiretapping provision of CIPA (CIPA § 631) and/or the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) (18 U.S.C. § 2710)—reach the class certification and summary judgment stages, which will be key to monitor as companies assess risk. See, e.g., Griffith v. TikTok, Inc., 2024 WL 5279224 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 24, 2024) (dismissing CIPA wiretapping and other claims at summary judgment); Frasco v. Flo Health, Inc., 2024 WL 4280933 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 23, 2024) (denying defendant’s summary judgment motion on CIPA wiretapping claim); Martinez v. D2C, LLC, 2024 WL 4367406 (S.D. Fla. Oct. 1, 2024) (denying certification of VPPA class); Torres v. Prudential Fin., Inc.,  2024 WL 4894289 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 26, 2024) (certifying CIPA wiretapping claim class).  

Another 2024 trend was counsel leveraging arbitration provisions in consumer-facing online terms to bring mass arbitration demands instead of class action lawsuits. In response, some companies targeted by mass arbitration demands worked to revise their terms and sought judicial intervention, while arbitration providers are revising their rules and fee structures to reduce filing costs. 

Looking ahead, we expect more clarity on the application of copyright law and the fair use doctrine to AI training. Some district courts have rejected the fair use defense, but decisions from district courts in California and New York addressing generative AI model training are expected in 2025. Companies developing models should closely monitor these developments as they refine compliance measures and consider whether to obtain licenses for training data to decrease potential exposure. 

We also expect the wave of privacy litigation against website operators to continue. As plaintiffs continue to test an array of statutory claims and seek to certify various nationwide and statewide classes, companies should consider (i) which technologies are necessary for their business operations, (ii) what information the technologies are configured to collect—in particular, any personally identifying information or potentially sensitive browsing information (e.g., regarding medical data), and (iii) whether to implement mitigation measures, including disclosures and consent mechanisms to address risk. 

The mass arbitration trend does not seem poised to slow down either. We expect that high arbitration fees will continue to be leveraged in attempts to pressure companies into early settlements. Companies can consider changes to their arbitration agreements designed to address mass arbitration scenarios specifically, while monitoring case law developments as these response mechanisms are tested in courts. 

Finally, we are starting to see more frequent class actions targeting IT outages. For example, following an IT outage in July 2024, CrowdStrike and its customers faced multiple class-action lawsuits. Similarly, in January 2025, Capital One experienced IT outages that led to a class action litigation. As this becomes a more common focus of litigation, companies seeking to mitigate risk can consider implementing IT outage plans focused on prevention, mitigation, and response management.

Data-representative class actions have existed in France for more than eight years now. Initially aimed at obtaining injunctive measures only, their scope was extended in 2018, 18 months after their introduction into French law, when France adopted the Data Protection Act in light of the GDPR, to allow redress measures.

Despite the growing importance of data protection and security concerns in our society, only two data class actions have been brought so far. One of these class actions was declared inadmissible in late 2024 by the Paris Judicial Court, which held that the association did not represent a class of data subjects in a similar situation.

How to explain this? Class actions are a very long route to obtain injunctive relief, while consumer associations may lodge complaints before the French Data Protection Authority, CNIL, on behalf of data subjects to that very end. 

Compensation issues may have also hindered the introduction of data class actions. As reflected by the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down in 2023 and 2024 on the right to compensation under the GDPR, the compensation regime and compensable losses were tricky issues. The CJEU has answered some questions, clarifying that any non-material damage may be compensated, whatever its degree of seriousness, provided it is proven, but its case law is still in development.

The aforementioned CJEU case law, combined with the fact that data has become one of the most valuable assets and data security one of the major concerns for many economic operators, might make 2025 and beyond crucial years for data security class actions. This might indeed have a windfall effect on the Plaintiffs' bar and consumer associations, especially in a context where EU Directive 2020/1828, the transposition of which into French law is currently being discussed in Parliament, has introduced cross-border class actions.

Reflecting on the 2024 antitrust and competition litigation landscape in Germany, several significant developments have emerged, particularly regarding digital markets and procedural aspects of bringing mass claims.

•   A key regulatory milestone was the further designations of major technology companies as dominant cross-market players under German competition law provisions (Section 19a Act Against Restraint of Competition) that subject such firms to stricter oversight — reinforcing regulators’ focus on curbing potential anti-competitive conduct in the digital sector. Additionally, in a landmark ruling, Germany’s highest court upheld this designation for a major online platform, confirming the legitimacy of stricter competition rules for digital gatekeepers. 

•   This development is mirrored in the private enforcement space: companies in the digital space are drawing more and more attention for often mass damages claims.

•   In private enforcement of competition law, courts overall have been showing an even greater willingness to support damages claims arising from cartel behavior and abuse of dominance. A major ruling in the mass cartel damages case of the Trucks cartel reinforced this trend by lowering the evidentiary burden on claimants and expanding judicial discretion in assessing damages under German procedural law

•   Additionally, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued guidance on statutes of limitations and jurisdiction for damages claims, further clarifying the legal landscape for private enforcement across EU member states. 

•   On procedural matters, a crucial ruling of the ECJ clarified the legal framework for bundling claims in competition litigation. This decision provided much-needed guidance on the admissibility of bundling claims — traditional class actions do not exist in Germany, making it easier for businesses and consumers to collectively pursue damages from anti-competitive behavior.

Looking ahead, several trends are likely to shape the antitrust and competition mass litigation landscape in 2025 and beyond: Competition enforcement in Germany is expected to focus heavily on digital markets and artificial intelligence. Companies should take proactive measures to mitigate risks and ensure compliance.

Regulators have signaled increasing scrutiny of AI-driven competition concerns, particularly regarding how AI-powered platforms might reinforce dominant market positions or facilitate collusive behavior through algorithmic pricing. The growing use of AI in business practices could lead to new enforcement actions against perceived anti-competitive practices — and will then in equal measure attract civil claims, often in a mass claims scenario.

At the same time, private enforcement of competition law is becoming more accessible, following key court rulings clarifying statutes of limitations and jurisdiction in cartel damages cases. These developments are likely to encourage more businesses and consumers to pursue claims for damages resulting from anti-competitive conduct.

Companies dealing with charges of anti-competitive behavior should therefore follow an extensive defense strategy encompassing both the engagement with authorities and defense against private claims. 

The only forum in the UK in which claims can be brought on an opt-out (as opposed to opt-in) basis is the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), which can hear collective claims brought by class representatives seeking redress for infringements of competition law.  

The popularity of this regime for claimants continued to grow in 2024, with 11 new claims being issued, as it provides an attractive route for resolving consumer-facing issues where the claim can be framed as a competition law issue. The low bar to certification of claims has continued to reinforce the attractiveness of the regime.

However, the last year was a period in which the post-certification stages of these claims came before the Tribunal, and class representatives suffered a number of setbacks: 

a)   In December 2024, in Justin Le Patourel v BT Group, which was the first opt-out collective action to reach judgment, the class representative sought over £1 billion in damages for residential landline customers who had allegedly been charged excessive prices. The claim failed: although BT was found to hold a dominant position, its prices were found not to have been abusive.  

b)   In February 2025, the CAT approved a settlement of a £10 billion interchange claim brought against Mastercard on behalf of UK consumers. The settlement was for £200m, which the funders in the case challenged as being too low. It is expected that some funders may be disincentivized to support cases that can be settled at a fraction of the stated value of the claim.    

c)   Added to this, early 2025 brought the first two claims to be refused certification under the regime, which may also put the brake on the increasing popularity of competition class actions:

(a)   In Christine Riefa Class Representative Limited v Apple Inc. and Amazon.com, Inc., the CAT rejected an application for a collective proceedings order (CPO) on the basis that Ms. Riefa was not a suitable class representative. Ms. Riefa had been subjected to cross-examination as part of the process, which might cause some potential class representatives to think twice about putting themselves forward.  

(b)   In Professor Carolyn Roberts v Thames Water, Professor Roberts sought a CPO to enable her to act as a class representative and pursue UK water companies for under-reporting pollution incidents. The application was unsuccessful, but on a narrow point: the CAT concluded that legislation governing the water sector prevented the CAT from certifying the case.  

(c)   Although there have been suggestions that these setbacks, taken together, will have a dampening effect on the growth of the burgeoning competition litigation class actions in this jurisdiction, that view is too simplistic.  

The three claims that failed each had highly specific fact patterns and while there are lessons to be learned from each, there is no indication that the CAT is necessarily an inhospitable forum. Indeed, the CAT continues to facilitate the certification of class actions in the majority of cases. 

It seems likely that the last 12 months will be seen as a period in which the trend for class actions brought in the CAT continued as the regime matured, but also a year in which the CAT signaled that such claims are not a one-way bet. 

Competition litigation class actions rely heavily on litigation funding, and that industry has been in a state of flux since the Supreme Court's decision in the PACCAR case in July 2023, albeit funders have continued to fund claims in the period since. 

The government has indicated that it will consider the outcome of the Civil Justice Council's review of the litigation funding industry, due this summer, as a first step towards potential new legislation that may reverse the impact of PACCAR. There is a real prospect that with any new legislation, the litigation industry may find itself more heavily regulated than has been the case to date. There are also a number of appeals currently before the Court of Appeals that are challenging the multiples-based litigation funding returns that have become commonplace in the market since PACCAR.  

However, litigation funders have proved to be resilient. Our prediction is that even if regulatory and case law developments present further difficulties for litigation funding, we should anticipate that litigation funders will remain keen to invest in competition litigation class actions, including in respect of mass consumer claims, given that these large-scale cases, while complex and long-running, have the potential for significant returns.

The coming year may prove something of a bellwether for the competition class action regime as judgment is expected in a number of standalone (i.e., not based on prior infringement decisions from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) abuse of dominance cases, including:

a)  Three related cases brought by Justin Gutmann against a number of train operators relating to alleged overcharging by train companies said to have resulted in some passengers paying twice for parts of the journeys. Judgment on liability is pending following a trial in the summer of 2024.

b)   Dr Rachael Kent v Apple Inc. and Apple Distribution International Ltd relating to alleged overcharging by Apple for app purchases.

The trial hit the headlines in January, with judgment anticipated before the end of the year. 

The outcome of these cases, taken together with the failure of the Le Patourel claim, may prove something of a yardstick for how mass consumer class actions fare in the CAT.

A further related development is the imminent introduction of the Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC), which will give the CMA new direct enforcement powers, including issuing fines if businesses have breached key consumer protection laws. This development may give rise to further consumer-focused cases, by class representatives framing breaches of the DMCC as abuses of dominance in order to bring cases with the CAT’s opt-out collective actions regime. 

Litigation trends generally follow public enforcement priorities, with a short lag, whilst the private damages claims catch up with the various dawn raids and investigations carried out by the competition authorities. A further trend is that the authorities are once again turning their attention to the industrial manufacturing sector, which could indicate that there are follow-on competition litigation cases to come. 

We recommend that clients keep an active eye on developments in this sphere, with a view both to considering whether they could benefit from investigations into and potential claims against companies in their supply chain, and to take proactive steps to prepare for any claims which may impact their industry.

If you are interested in these developments or think that they may have an impact on your business, our Competition Litigation team is available to provide more information. 

2024 saw a continuation of the key structural issue going to the heart of Data Security class actions: how can they proceed proportionately when the value of individual claims is low? 

English court rules provide two main class action frameworks: an ‘opt out’ structure (the “representative claim”) and an ‘opt-in’ structure (the “group litigation order” or “GLO”). Both have been dealt difficult blows in 2024. 

Down and out for opt-out claims

Another potential door for mass opt-out claims was slammed shut in 2024 with the Court of Appeal’s decision in Prismall v Google. 

Against the background of the Supreme Court’s seminal Lloyd v Google decision, data-related representative claims faced an uphill battle. An alternative claim for ‘misuse of private information’ seemed to provide a way of sidestepping that decision. In Prismall, however, the Court of Appeal commented that “a representative class claim for misuse of information is always going to be very difficult to bring”. Even in Prismall, involving alleged misuse of medical data — data that most people generally consider private — a key flaw in the claim was that medical data is not necessarily private in all cases. These issues require individual assessment; and such assessment is fundamentally incompatible with an ‘opt-out’ claim. 

These issues pose particular problems for would-be claimants, as representative actions offer the best potential economic returns for claimant-side funders and firms, since individuals do not actively need to sign up to the claim. It is now difficult to see how such claims can continue. 

A no-go for GLOs:

The alternative structure — an ‘opt-in’ GLO — has seen its own difficulties too. This structure is built for testing common issues across numerous individual claims. It comes with a procedural framework that can assist claimants, e.g. around selecting a lead law firm, establishing a group register, and publicizing the group action. 

However, the track record of cases going through the courts has shown that GLOs are difficult to pursue in the data context, where claims are generally brought for distress and therefore involve very individualized issues and low levels of damages. Group litigation involves significant upfront costs to establish the group structure, the register of individual claims, etc., which raises real proportionality concerns. 

Opt-in claims: a way through? 

The trend of data class actions going through the English courts over the last year or so has shown a move away from the structured GLO approach, in favor of claims brought simply as a combination of individual claims without any formalized structure, often with a sample of individuals chosen as ‘lead claimants’ whose claims will be tested first to provide guidance for the remaining cohort (the ‘lead claimant model’). That approach has been used in other contexts for many years, and we now see it making headway in the Data Security landscape. 

Even in those cases, however, it remains difficult for claimants to apply the necessary elements of a data claim across the group – as the High Court’s February 2024 decision in the Equiniti litigation showed. The High Court struck out the overwhelming majority of the claims on the basis that they had no prospect of establishing the necessary aspects of the claims for GDPR breaches and misuse of private information. 

These developments in 2024 show that Data Security class actions in England & Wales continue to be difficult ground for would-be claimants. 

Building on our 2024 takeaways, 2025 is likely to see alternative approaches to get Data Security claims off the ground. It is helpful here to distinguish two broad types of data claims: (1) complaints about business-as-usual processing being in breach of data laws or other private rights; and (2) claims arising out of specific events, such as cyberattacks or other security incidents. 

General processing claims 

Even the alternative combined claims approach / lead claimant model we have described above requires large numbers of individual users/consumers to sign up for the claim and assert damages they have suffered by the relevant processing (generally: distress). We expect to see claimants approaching these types of claims, in particular, in novel ways, using different legal rights and mechanisms to air these issues. 

One such example is the competition law angle. True opt-out class actions are permitted under English law for competition law claims (and, as things stand, for competition law claims alone). Collective claims in the Competition Appeal Tribunal have seen a big uptick in recent years and show no signs of slowing down, not least because the opt-out structure is the most beneficial for claimant firms and funders. There are some early indications of attempts to use this more well-established route for Data Security class actions, and that may well continue into 2025. Such claims would involve abuses of dominant market position, which is more likely to impact larger data controllers where such dominance will be easier to establish, but there could well be similar issues in smaller, more specific markets with major operators. Any organization that might face these types of allegations should prepare by being aware of the competition law context in which it operates and considering data security issues holistically as part of its overall compliance and risk mitigation approach.   

Incident claims 

In the second type of claims above — arising out of specific security incidents — we expect to see more of a push toward informal combined claims bringing together multiple claimants. The combination increases the overall claim value and allows the claims to be brought to the High Court (whereas individual claims on their own would likely be conducted in the ‘small claims’ track where cost recovery — and incentive for claimant firms — is limited).
 
In those situations, identifying individuals who might be willing to bring a claim is easier, as they are the individuals affected by the incident itself. Despite the challenges facing mass data claims generally, claims in this space remain common. Moreover, without the formality of a GLO (which requires court approval and significant start-up cost), it is easier to get these claims started and we could see complaints move more quickly into formal legal proceedings. Claims could also proliferate without one specific claimant law firm leading the charge for a representative claim or GLO. 

However, issues of proportionality and procedural hurdles remain. Any organization faced with such claims should raise any structural and procedural concerns considered early on as part of any defense strategy. 

Funding

No look-ahead to 2025 would be complete without a word on funding. The Supreme Court’s 2023 PACCAR decision looms large over all English class actions; the funding industry continues to face uncertainty, with heralded legislative intervention still awaited. 

The Supreme Court held that a commonly used form of litigation funding arrangement was a damages-based agreement, and thereby needed to comply with relevant rules applying to such agreements — contrary to widely held views across the funding industry. Failure to comply with those rules leaves the funding agreement unenforceable. 

The true impact of this decision on existing funding agreements remains to be seen, with a further Court of Appeal decision on the issue expected later this year, alongside a wide-ranging regulatory review by the Civil Justice Council scheduled for summer 2025. 

There is no formal mechanism for bringing forward a class action in an employment context in the UK. However, it is common for large numbers of individual employees to bring employment tribunal claims relating to a similar issue, often equal pay challenges or claims that an employer has not calculated holiday pay entitlements properly. Some law firms specialize in bringing such claims, often working on a no-win, no-fee basis. Employees lodged around 59,000 such multiple claims in 2023/24, according to the most recent official statistics.

An employment tribunal will normally treat some of the multiple claims as lead cases and stay other claims raising the same issue while it considers the lead claims. The tribunal’s decision in the lead cases will then normally be binding on the stayed cases.  

Although equal pay claims were historically more common in the public sector and resulted in significant liabilities at a local government level, they are increasingly frequent in the private sector, notably in retail. Predominantly female store-based workers have relied on predominantly male distribution center workers as comparators, claiming that they are employed on work of equal value. Equal pay issues are complex and often take years of litigation to resolve. 

Claims against most major UK supermarkets involving tens of thousands of employees continued to progress through the tribunal system during 2024. If the claims are successful, it is estimated that the bill for compensation could run to billions of pounds. Tribunals can award employees who win their claim up to six years’ back pay, reflecting the higher rate they should have received. In 2024, a tribunal decided one of the first cases to get to a full hearing in the employees’ favor.

In 2025, existing equal pay litigation will continue to make its way through the court system, including an appeal by the employer of last year’s successful decision. Employers outside the retail sector should monitor the litigation’s progress, especially if they have roles that tend to be performed predominantly by workers of one sex, as that will increase the risk of multiple equal pay claims. It’s anticipated that claimant law firms will work to identify other sectors in which equal pay claims might be viable.

The government is also proposing to extend the current equal pay legislation beyond the protected characteristic of sex to include race and disability, and to allow employees of an outsourcing provider to compare themselves with a client’s employees for equal pay purposes. If those proposals go ahead, they will increase the scope for multiple equal pay claims substantially. As of yet, it’s not clear whether the government intends the client or the outsourcing provider to be liable for compensation in a successful cross-employer equal pay claim.

Employers should engage with the government about these proposals to ensure that it understands the business and economic ramifications before it decides how to proceed. That may help minimize the risk of future claims. Any changes are unlikely to take effect until 2026 or 2027 at the earliest.

Consistent with recent years, antitrust enforcement and class action litigation were vigorous in 2024. Plaintiffs continued to file antitrust cases directed at major sectors of the economy, including housing, food, pharmaceuticals, healthcare services, higher education, and labor. Some of these class actions advance fairly novel theories of antitrust liability, including, most notably, claims involving information sharing and so-called algorithmic pricing, whether in the form of price recommendations generated by algorithms fed with the information (RealPage), establishing reimbursement rates based on both public and non-public information (Multiplan), and identifying individual variances from average prices compiled from the shared information (Agri Stats). These cases seek to change the way courts analyze information exchange claims generally and to recognize that price-fixing can occur regardless of whether it is outsourced to a third party or an algorithm. The reaction from courts has been mixed so far, with some cases dismissed entirely at the pleadings stage, some having certain claims trimmed, while many others have moved into the discovery and merits stages.   

In addition to these novel theories, class action plaintiffs continued to press more traditional antitrust claims in 2024, including supply-reduction theories in the frozen potato space, price-fixing theories associated with the use of industry benchmarking services in the PVC pipe and conduit space, and pay-for-delay theories where courts have been focused on class-related issues. 2024 also saw resolutions of important antitrust class actions. A prime example is the October 2023 trial win and subsequent March 2024 settlement of the class action against the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and major brokerage firms. NAR ultimately entered a settlement on March 15, 2024, agreeing to pay $418 million and institute practice changes that shift the way home purchasing has functioned for years. In addition to the NAR settlement, 2024 saw other long-standing antitrust class actions settle, including the largest antitrust class action settlement in the healthcare space, with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Provider settlement totaling $2.8 billion. The NCAA also settled the longstanding class action litigation it was involved in related to name, image, and likeness rights for over $2.7 billion. In summary, it was an eventful year for class action litigation for both developing and already-developed areas of antitrust law.

We expect 2025 to be another active year for antitrust class actions. Beyond the holdover cases from 2024 (or earlier), class action plaintiffs have filed many new cases in the first several months of 2025. Some of those cases also press novel antitrust theories consistent with what we saw in 2024. For example, in February 2025, a putative class of California convenience stores brought Robinson-Patman Act (RPA) claims against PepsiCo, Inc., alleging discriminatory pricing on snack food items. The lawsuit follows a newly revived government interested in enforcing the RPA and may raise challenging questions about class certification because plaintiffs must show individualized harm for each member of the putative class. In early March 2025, classes of resident pharmacists sued the American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists and leading hospital systems that offer pharmacy residencies, alleging that the long-standing system used to match pharmacy school graduates with residencies violates the antitrust laws.

The change in administration will also undoubtedly impact federal antitrust enforcement, which in turn is likely to impact class action litigation trends because the two operate cyclically. Where there is a government-led antitrust enforcement action, there is almost surely an accompanying private case, most often styled as a class action. In recent years, we have seen that trend work in the opposite direction as well, where the class action plaintiffs’ bar is leading the charge in a particular area, and the government enforcers follow on with their own case.  

The second Trump administration has not outlined clear antitrust enforcement goals, and the statements so far from the administration have been generic commitments to continue vigorous enforcement with a focus on tech-related issues. The only new and notable area that the second Trump administration identified for potential enforcement relates to potential “collusion or unlawful coordination on DEI metrics” in labor markets. See FTC Memorandum, Directive Regarding Labor Markets Task Force. Enforcement actions targeted at this type of conduct could lead to a swath of class actions consistent with what happened when the first criminal enforcement actions were brought in relation to the naked no-poach and wage-fixing agreements during the first Trump administration. Should the second Trump administration ultimately prove to be laxer on antitrust enforcement than the Biden administration, companies should not assume their antitrust litigation risk is substantially lessened. During times of less aggressive federal enforcement, we have historically observed an uptick in both private class actions and state-led antitrust enforcement efforts.   

Companies should pay close attention to the resolution of pending antitrust cases, particularly those with claims related to the exchange of information and/or the use of algorithms. Additionally, we expect the antitrust goals of the second Trump administration to be clearer once the relevant nominees are fully confirmed and installed into their respective agencies. That process should be complete by mid-2025 at the latest. Tracking those goals will also identify where companies should be focused in terms of potential antitrust liability, both from federal enforcement actions and class action litigation. 

In 2024, the number of new data breach class actions soared, and litigation targeted not only the corporate cyberattack victims but also their customers or channel partners whose data was impacted. Plaintiffs’ counsel increasingly filed separate suits on behalf of individuals whose information may have been impacted in a single cyberattack, which ultimately resulted in many consolidated class actions or multi-district litigations. While some courts significantly trimmed putative class action complaints at the motion to dismiss stage for lack of standing or failure to state a claim, negligence and contract-based claims often survived, and plaintiffs saw some limited and cabined success at class certification that they will no doubt attempt to use to seek certifications in other cases.

At the motion-to-dismiss stage, negligence and contract-based claims often survived, but at least one court dismissed many claims, including negligence, for failure to sufficiently allege a breach of a duty to safeguard data. Order, Crowe v. Managed Care of N. Am. Inc., 23-61065-CIV (S.D. Fla. Aug. 16, 2024). The Crowe court agreed with the defendants on the first Motion to Dismiss that plaintiffs’ argument — that the data breach was evidence that defendants’ data protection standards were non-compliant with their common law and statutory duties, and thus, defendants must have chosen not to protect plaintiffs’ data — was “conclusory and, in essence, creates a strict liability standard for companies who suffer a data breach.” Id. at 20. Also at the motion-to-dismiss stage, courts have been increasingly willing to hold that receiving spam texts and calls after a data breach is not an injury-in-fact or traceable to defendants, and thus dismiss plaintiffs for lack of Article III standing. See, e.g., Liau v. Weee! Inc., 2024 WL 729259 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 22, 2024); Logan v. Marker Grp., Inc., 2024 WL 3489208 (S.D. Tex. July 18, 2024). 

Although many data breach actions settled in 2024, several cases proceeded to class certification decisions: two courts certified classes, and one denied class certification. Savidge v. Pharm-Save, Inc., 727 F. Supp. 3d 661 (W.D. Ky. 2024) (certifying nationwide negligence and breach-of-implied-contract damages classes); Attias v. CareFirst, Inc., 346 F.R.D. 1 (D.D.C. 2024) (certifying breach-of-contract class covering certain residents in three states); In re Blackbaud, Inc., Customer Data Breach Litig., 2024 WL 2155221 (D.S.C. May 14, 2024) (denying class certification due to a lack of ascertain ability).

Article III standing case law in data breach litigation continued to evolve in 2024, and we expect courts will grapple with more nuanced standing arguments in 2025. For example, in Greenstein v. Noblr Reciprocal Exchange, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a class action when plaintiffs failed to plead that their information was actually stolen, leaving them unable to establish injury. 2024 WL 3886977 (9th Cir. Aug. 21, 2024). The Greenstein plaintiffs relied heavily on the defendant’s breach notification letter, but that letter stated only that the plaintiffs’ data “may have been accessed,” exemplifying the importance of precise notification letters. We also expect to see further development regarding whether intangible harms are sufficient to establish Article III standing. There is a growing circuit split regarding TransUnion’s directive that intangible harms may qualify as concrete injuries if they are “a close historical or common law analogue for the[] asserted injury.” TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 424 (2021). In 2024, the Third Circuit followed the Tenth Circuit and adopted the “kind of harm” test, rejecting the more plaintiff-friendly “element-for-element” approach adopted by the Eleventh Circuit. Barclift v. Keystone Credit Servs., LLC, 93 F.4th 136 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 169 (2024).

In the greatest legislative development affecting data breach class actions since data breach notification laws with private rights of action came to be, three state legislatures passed legislation concerning the threshold for negligence liability arising from a data breach. However, only the Tennessee bill became law; the Florida and West Virginia governors vetoed the bills. The Tennessee law provides that private entities are “not liable in class action lawsuits resulting from a cybersecurity event unless the cybersecurity event was caused by willful and wanton misconduct or gross negligence on the part of the private entity.” TN Code § 29-34-215(b) (emphasis added). So far, the only litigation regarding this law resulted in the courts holding that the law is not retroactive, but litigants who might benefit from this law should keep it top of mind.

Employment class action activity in the United States remained robust in 2024, with California continuing to set the pace. The most significant development was California’s sweeping reforms to the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) on July 1, 2024. The law took immediate effect and is expected to substantially reshape the landscape for representative actions in California.

In response to greater enforcement of arbitration agreements, the plaintiffs’ bar increasingly filed PAGA-only actions in an effort to sidestep arbitration. These filings often rely on dicta from recent appellate decisions to argue that representative-only PAGA claims may proceed without an individual component. However, these decisions interpret pre-reform PAGA and do not definitively resolve the issue. In contrast, Leeper v. Shipt, Inc., 107 Cal. App. 5th 1001 (2024) directly held that every PAGA action necessarily includes an individual claim that must be arbitrated if covered by a valid agreement.  

Nationally, employers continue to rely on arbitration agreements to mitigate class and representative exposure. Courts, however, are scrutinizing both the procedural fairness and rollout of these agreements, prompting employers to revisit their arbitration strategies.

Wage-and-hour issues remain the dominant basis for class and representative actions, particularly claims involving meal and rest periods, off-the-clock work, time rounding, and misclassification. Even where defenses are strong, the cost of litigation — combined with uncertainty around how to reduce penalties under New PAGA — reinforces the need for experienced counsel.

The implementation of New PAGA presents both opportunity and risk. The law introduces new procedures — including “early evaluation,” “cure,” and “reasonable step” mechanisms — designed to promote compliance and resolve disputes before litigation. However, these provisions are untested, and no case law or court guidance currently exists. Litigation and motion practice in 2025 will be critical in shaping how these mechanisms are applied in practice.

Separately, the California Supreme Court’s upcoming review of Leeper v. Shipt could significantly alter the representative action landscape. If overturned, plaintiffs may be permitted to bring representative-only PAGA claims covering all employees within the one-year statute of limitations — even where arbitration agreements exist — potentially weakening arbitration as a defense tool.

Outside California, class actions tied to pay equity, transparency, and promotion practices are gaining momentum, driven by new disclosure obligations. Multinational employers also face growing exposure from coordinated litigation across jurisdictions, underscoring the need for globally aligned compliance strategies.

To stay ahead, employers should proactively review arbitration agreements, update wage-and-hour policies, and conduct wage-and-hour audits. As enforcement and litigation trends continue to evolve, preparation and adaptability will be key to minimizing exposure and maintaining compliance.