| Summary: | The Swedish procedural legislation on class actions before general courts, GrL, was when coming into force in January 2003 the first generally applicable class action regime of continental Europe. However, it seems, it was never used in any notable extent. In this thesis I have analysed GrL, it’s potential flaws, how it could be affected by the ongoing EU legislative procedure of establishing a directive regarding representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers, and what the Swedish legislator could potentially learn from the Dutch model being primarily based on a regime of mass settlements. The ongoing EU legislative procedure will by all accounts result in a directive requiring Swedish class action regime to be adjusted with a few minor modifications, primarily the introduction of a certification procedure of entities to allow these to initiate representative actions in disputes concerning the protection of consumers’ collective interests. Apart from adjustments of Swedish class action legislation in order to harmonise it with the directive, I have argued for several additional adjustments of proceedings under GrL in order to make it in an increased degree correspond with the reasons by which the legislation was motivated, and in order to in general function in a more effective manner. For that purpose, I have argued that the opt in mechanism should be replaced with an opt out mechanism, or that opt out should at least be introduced as a supplementing option to an opt in main rule. Independently of the issue of whether an opt in or an opt out mechanism should be used to constitute the represented group, I have furthermore argued that the mechanism used should allow group members to leave the group during the proceedings. Finally, I have argued that the courts should be encouraged to use a for the Swedish legal system untypically active direction of proceedings in class actions specifically.
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