Encountering Class Actions in Swedish Law and Society

Authors M.M. Molavi 1

Class actions in Sweden are not flourishing. This article examines why the oldest class action regime in Scandinavia has not developed into anything more than a peripheral addition to the Swedish legal landscape, drawing on relevant procedural, political, and sociological insights. It is divided into two sections that (1) analyse the reform process in the 1990s and latest developments, including main design points of the regime and how these impact collective access to justice for potential claims-makers, and (2) document the complex and at-times contradictory Swedish juridical field in which class actions are situated, with the objective of offering a socially contextual understanding of the current state of Swedish class actions for those otherwise unfamiliar with the regime. In so doing, the article offers an exploratory account for why class actions have failed to live up to their original aims and examines the potential that the anemic state of the regime may be a transitional stage.

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