SLOVENIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Bojan Brežan, Marko Frantar, Maks David Osojnik and Špela Lovšin, Schoenherr Slovenia
Schoenherr Slovenia Tomšičeva ulica 3 SI-1000
Ljubljana Slovenia
Tel: +386 1 200 09 80 Fax: +386 1 426 07 11 Email: office.slovenia@schoenherr.eu Web: www.schoenherr.si/en
1. Policy Development of Collective Redress/Class Action Mechanisms 1.1 History and Policy Drivers of the Legislative Regime The history of the development of collective actions in Slovenia may be divided into two distinct periods, separated by one milestone – the enactment of the Slovenian Collective Actions Act ( Zakon o kolektivnih tožbah , or “the Collective Actions Act”) in September 2017. Prior to the Collective Actions Act, collective redress mechanisms in Slovenia were limited to non-com- pensatory actions that were filed by a plaintiff in the interest of a class of unidentified persons, namely via: • a collective injunction relief for safeguarding the interests of consumers under the Consumer Pro- tection Act 1998 ( Zakon o varstvu potrošnikov , or the “Consumer Protection Act”); and • a non-compensatory action for the protection of the (right to a) healthy living environment. By implementing Directive 98/27/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 May 1998 on injunctions for the protection of consumers’ interests, and later Directive 2009/22/EC of the European Parlia- ment and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on injunc- tions for the protection of consumers’ interests (“the Injunctions Directive”), the Consumer Protection Act provided for:
• an injunction relief mechanism to cease illegal practices in business-to-consumer relationships; and • the declaration of nullity of consumer contracts and/or their provisions. Additionally, the regimes under the Slovenian Code of Obligations ( Obligacijski zakonik ) and the Environ- mental Protection Act ( Zakon o varstvu okolja , or “the Environmental Protection Act”) enable actions for the collective protection of a healthy living environment. Under the Environmental Protection Act, specifically, the right to a healthy living environment can be exer- cised by requiring an entity to cease any interven- tion into the environment that causes (or threatens to cause) excessive negative effects on the environment or imminent danger to human life or health. Cessa- tion of such intervention can be demanded before the court by a non-governmental organisation or a civil initiative, in addition to natural persons. The adoption of the Collective Actions Act fully intro- duced collective actions into the Slovenian legal sys- tem and, at the same time, repealed the chapter of the Consumer Protection Act that provided for the consumers’ injunctive relief mechanism. The Collec- tive Actions Act text was based on the EU collec- tive actions framework that was in place at the time, namely the Injunctions Directive and the EC’s Recom- mendation of 11 June 2013 on common principles for injunctive and compensatory collective redress mechanisms in the Member States concerning viola- tions of rights granted under Union Law (“the 2013 Recommendation”).
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