SWEDEN Law and Practice Contributed by: Georgios Eleftheriadis, Hellström Law Firm
Section 24 of the Act on class actions for the pro- tection of consumer interests stipulates that a class action may not be financed by a competitor of the respondent (or anyone dependent upon the respond- ent). The third party financier is furthermore not allowed to influence the procedural decisions made by the approved entity if this is to the detriment of the classes’ common interests. 3.10 Disclosure and Privilege Swedish law essentially does not include any obligation for pre-trial disclosure or discovery. Trial disclosure may be conducted at the request of a party and need not be directed at the opposing party in the case. Trial disclosure requests must be for identified docu- ments (which may be specified in a variety of ways, either individually or as a category ‒ for example, all minutes from meetings on a given matter between two given dates). So called “fishing expeditions” are not allowed under Swedish procedure. A further require- ment is that the documents should at least in theory have some value as evidence in the ongoing matter. Swedish law also includes an obligation to testify. Any- one called as a witness thus has such an obligation. Privileged correspondence is exempt from disclosure obligations. This applies to oral testimonies as well. 3.11 Remedies There are no particular limitations on remedies avail- able through class actions in Sweden. Class actions thus enable claimants to pursue the same remedies as they would for any civil litigation procedure. This includes enforceable judgements on specific perfor- mance, monetary claims (damages, reimbursement, and the like), declaratory judgments, and injunctions. 3.12 Settlement and ADR Mechanisms Class actions may only be settled with binding effect on all class members through a formal procedure. A settlement between the class representative and the respondent is only binding upon all members of the class if the settlement has been recognised and accepted by the court through a formal judgment.
For the court to render such a judgment, the settle- ment must not be discriminatory against members of the class. The settlement may also not be manifestly unconscionable. Members of the class must be notified of the settle- ment and have the option of entering the ongoing pro- cedure if they do not wish to be part of the settlement. 3.13 Judgments and Enforcement of Judgments Class action judgments are binding upon all members of the class who opted in on the procedure, as well as upon the respondent with regard to said members. Enforcement of class action judgments does not differ from enforcement of civil litigation judgments in gener- al. This means that the claimant must make an appli- cation to the Swedish Enforcement Agency ‒ append- ing the judgment ‒ to have the matter enforced. Currently, there is little policy development taking place in Sweden concerning class actions. The latest development was the implementation of EU Directive 2020/1828 through the Act on class actions for the protection of consumer interest, which was enacted in 2023. 4.2 Legislative Reform Swedish legislation on class actions has generally been sparse and there is little interest in legislative reform. The more likely developments are going to be related to EU initiatives, as was the case with the implementa- tion of EU Directive 2020/1828. There are currently no pending domestic proposals for further reform. 4. Legislative Reform 4.1 Policy Development
5. Key Trends 5.1 Impact of Key Trends
Unfortunately, class action litigation has not proven popular in Sweden. Since the inception of the Group Proceedings Act, Sweden has seen no more than around 30 class actions cases.
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