The Fall and Rise of the Antitrust Class Action

Antitrust class actions have narrowed significantly in the United States in recent years but still remain robust compared to aggregate litigation in the rest of the world. While the Supreme Court continues to narrow the doorway to class actions, the rest of the world is increasingly interested in creating new mechanisms for aggregate litigation to better support effective private damage litigation in competition cases, and in particular the large number of small claims cases that led to the class action boom in the United States in the first place. The challenge for the rest of the world will be to fashion new remedies consistent with the history, culture, substantive law, and procedural rules of their legal traditions rather than either adopt or reject the system that has evolved in the United States.