Italy
Italy has class action legislation now. Consumer associations can file claims on behalf of groups of consumers to obtain judicial orders against corporations that cause injury or damage to consumers. These types of claims are increasing and Italian courts have recently allowed them against banks that continue to apply compound interest on retail clients’ current account overdrafts. The introduction of class actions is on the new government’s agenda. On the 19th of November 2007 the Senato della Repubblica passed a class action law in Finanziara 2008, a financial document for the economy management of the government. Now (from 10 December 2007), in order of Italian legislation system, the law is before the House and has to be passed also by the Camera dei Deputati, the second house of Italian Parliament, to become an effective law. In 2004, the Italian parliament considered the introduction of a type of class action, specifically in the area of consumers’ law. To date, no such law has been enacted, however scholars demonstrated that class actions (azioni rappresentative) do not contrast with Italian principles of civil procedure. Class Action is regulated by art. 140 bis of the Italian consumers' code and will be in force from 1 July 2009.
Read more about this topic: Class Action
Famous quotes containing the word italy:
“I think sometimes that it is almost a pity to enjoy Italy as much as I do, because the acuteness of my sensations makes them rather exhausting; but when I see the stupid Italians I have met here, completely insensitive to their surroundings, and ignorant of the treasures of art and history among which they have grown up, I begin to think it is better to be an American, and bring to it all a mind and eye unblunted by custom.”
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!”
—Orson Welles (1915–84)
“For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery—back, back down the old ways of time. Strange and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many hundreds of years of complete forgetfulness.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)