SLOVENIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Bojan Brežan, Marko Frantar, Maks David Osojnik and Špela Lovšin, Schoenherr Slovenia
1.3 Implementation of the EU Collective Redress Regime Implementation The injunctive mechanism under the Collective Actions Act aligns with the Injunctions Directive, whereas the compensatory mechanism is modelled on the 2013 Recommendation and also implements the 2020/1828 Directive. As the compensatory actions regime had already been enacted in 2017 on the basis of the 2013 Recommendation, Slovenia was one of the first European countries to fully set forth a compensatory collective actions mechanism – even before the 2020/1828 Directive was adopted. There were, however, still some aspects that need to be upgraded and harmonised with new developments under the 2020/1828 Directive. These aspects have been addressed by the amendment to the Collective Actions Act – ZKolT-A, which came into force in Janu- ary 2024 (see 4.2 Legislative Reform ). Local Deviations/Specificities The Collective Actions Act, although heavily based on the 2013 Recommendation and the 2020/1828 Direc- tive, contains some isolated deviations therefrom. For example, if the premium for the financing of collec- tive action cannot be paid from the share of awarded procedural costs as recovered from the defendant, the individual amount of compensation that each member of the class is entitled to may be proportion- ally reduced to allow for the payment of the financier (for more on contingency fees, see 3.9 Funding and Costs ). Another deviation from the 2013 Recommendation relates to the question of standing. The Collective Actions Act does not require the representative entity to be officially designated by the state as an entity with standing in collective compensatory actions. Rather, this matter is assessed by the court during the certi- fication stage of the proceedings (see also 3.2 Over- view of Procedure ).
Further, the amendment to the Collective Actions Act (ZKolT-A), which was adopted in December 2023 and came into force in January 2024, implemented Direc- tive (EU) 2020/1828 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2020 on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers and repealing Directive 2009/22/EC (“the 2020/1828 Directive”). Proceedings that were initiated prior to the entry into force of ZKolT-A, and which had not concluded with final and binding effect by the date of enactment of ZKolT-A, continue to be governed by the provisions of the Collective Actions Act as in force prior to the adoption of the ZKolT-A. Aside from the specific collective actions regime, there are other ancillary mechanisms under the Civil Procedure Act ( Zakon o pravdnem postopku , or “the Civil Procedure Act”) that have been used historically by a larger number of individuals to pursue the same or similar interests or in response to the same harmful event – for example, joinders and model case proce- dures. Additionally, under the special framework of the Labour and Social Courts Act, there is a mechanism in place to pursue redress actions against an employer by a group of workers. However, these procedures differ substantially from the collective actions regime in one key aspect: under the Collective Actions Act, the injured persons are not themselves parties to the proceedings. The claims are instead brought by an entity which – although itself not subject to the mass harm – files a lawsuit to the benefit of the affected indi- viduals and represents them as members of a class that has been harmed by a mass harm event. 1.2 Basis for the Legislative Regime, Including Analogous International Laws The Collective Actions Act was modelled on the EU Collective Redress Regime in force at the time of its adoption. The ZKolT-A amendment further imple- mented the 2020/1828 Directive. The act also incor- porated certain good practices and model examples from other European countries ‒ namely, the collective settlement regime’s system was organised along simi- lar lines as the Netherlands’, whereas the regime for the allocation of damages was based on equivalent regimes in Belgium and the UK.
276 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook