Class Actions and Government

The relationship between class actions and government makes for a nuanced and fascinating study.Government sets the scene by implementing and designing the regime, by choosing whether to act as a seed-funder for the regime, and by deciding to what extent it should regulate the regime against worldwide classes being litigated on its doorstep.It can then become a key player in the litigation itself.Government may be a representative claimant bringing the action, or a class member, or a potential financial beneficiary.Most commonly of all, it may be a defendant, being sued under the very regime which it enacted into law.With numerous opt-out class action regimes around the common law world in place, and others on the horizon, the book takes a comparative perspective throughout, and concludes with a series of recommendations, drawn from that comparative analysis of government's intricate interplay with class actions.