Commercial Litigation
Once the preserve and a staple of US litigation, in recent years class action claims have gained traction in the English courts across a wide variety of sectors. Recent disputes have involved securities and shareholder litigation against financial institutions like RBS and Lloyds/HBOS, claims against large companies such as Tesco, actions arising out of breaches of data protection legislation against British Airways, easyJet and Morrisons, and arising out of product liability such as the VW diesel emissions testing scandal. Another area of significant growth for class actions in the UK has been in competition law, and the Supreme Court recently provided important guidance on the certification of collective action procedures before the Competition Appeals Tribunal in its landmark decision in MasterCard Incorporated & ors v Merricks [2020].
Where the US leads and the UK follows, the UAE may not be far behind. There are numerous areas of law and sectors where class action or group litigation in the UAE may crystallise in the near future. The common law courts of the UAE in the Dubai International Financial Centre and Abu Dhabi Global Market financial free zones are particularly likely places for class action claims, as they host numerous financial institutions such as banks, investment companies and insurers in a user friendly legal framework.
