The Act of 28 March 2014 inserted Title 2 "Collective redress procedure" in Book XVII ("Specific legal proceedings") of the Code of Economic Law (Official Gazette 29 April 2014).
The Act will enter into force on 1 September 2014. It cannot be applied to cases of mass damage that were already known; the common cause of the collective damage must have occurred after the entry into force of the Act.
It is important to note that this is not a general class-action act. The collective redress procedure is limited to "consumer-to-business" relationships and is exercised by a single group representative. The procedure will only be admissible if the cause of the collective damage consists of a company's breach of its contractual obligations or of one of the European regulations or laws which are listed exhaustively in article XVII.37.
Consumers' associations thus have a new means of recourse available against companies. Companies will have to take this risk into account.
For a more extensive discussion of the Act, see Eubelius Spotlights March 2014.