The European Commission (EC) will launch a Europe-wide consultation on collective actions next month, as it attempts once again to harmonise laws and improve access to compensation for individuals and small businesses.

Announcing the forthcoming consultation in a speech at the University of Valladolid in Spain last week, competition policy commissioner Joaquín Almunia said that citizens and businesses need effective rights to obtain compensation, regardless of where they are in Europe.

Almunia, alongside consumer policy commissioner John Dalli and justice commissioner Viviane Reding, signed a joint information note last week resolving to pursue the issue of collective actions.

The EC failed to push through a directive on collective actions at the end of last year, following pressure from the European Parliament, which claimed that businesses would be exposed to abusive litigation under the proposed measures.

‘Every year, large numbers of small businesses and ordinary people in the EU are effectively deprived of their rights as economic actors and as citizens,’ said Almunia.

He added: ‘We must identify safeguards that will prevent importing a US-style litigation culture. Collective action in Europe has not led to abuse – and this is something we should be proud of.’

Five ‘common principles’ will underpin the collective redress policy: effective compensation for those who have suffered damage; the need for measures to avoid abusive litigation; opportunities to resolve disputes through settlements or alternative means; the ability to enforce collective judgments throughout the EU; and the provision of adequate case financing for citizens and small businesses.

Almunia said that only state bodies and certified non-profit organisations would be allowed to bring actions, and that any damages awarded would go entirely to victims and not to the representative entity.

He said the commission’s work, although aimed at private enforcement of competition rules, would be applied to other areas such as environment and consumer protection.

The public consultation will run until February 2011. In the second half of 2011 Almunia will present a ‘specific proposal on antitrust damages actions’ to the commission, which will ‘set common standards and minimum requi­re­ments for national systems of antitrust damages actions’.