Preliminary approval of the Legislative Decree transposing the European Directive on representative actions

The Italian Council of Ministers has approved, as a preliminary step, the Legislative Decree transposing Directive (EU) 2020/1828 “on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers”, aimed at harmonizing the level of protection granted to consumer in the European context, as well as at avoiding the abuse of litigation.
By implementing the EU provisions, the aforementioned Decree establishes a special list of “entities entitled” to represent the interests of consumers, expressly designated for this purpose by the Ministry of Enterprise on the basis of specific requirements.
Following the provisions of the EU Directive, the national legislator has also introduced in the Consumer Code, in addition to the class action procedure provided for by Art. 840 bis of the Code of Civil Procedure and the injunction procedure pursuant to Art. 840 sexiesdecies of the Code of Civil Procedure, the possibility, for the aforementioned entities and with certain procedural differences with respect to the aforementioned actions, of carrying out a new action to protect the collective interests and individual rights of consumers, aimed at obtaining measures both inhibitory and compensatory.
The legislative text - currently being examined by the parliamentary commissions for the final approval and applicable from 25 June 2023 - also provides for the possibility for the aforementioned entities to carry out cross-border “representative” actions.