China
In the PRC, a civil action involving two or more claimants and/or defendants is referred to as a collective action rather than a class action.
Amendments made to the 1991 Civil Procedure Law, effective from 1 January 2013 (2012 Amendments), introduced a provision regarding public interest collective actions, under which an authority or organization prescribed by law may institute a collective action for conduct that pollutes the environment, infringes upon the lawful rights and interests of a large group of consumers or otherwise damages public interest.
More recently, by virtue of the amended Civil Procedure Law, effective from 1 July 2017 (2017 Amendments), the organizations that are entitled to bring public interest collective actions are no longer restricted to those prescribed by the law. The new provision allows the people’s procuratorates (which are the PRC’s prosecution organs) to file a collective action where there is no such organization authorized by law to bring the action or such organization fails to do so.
To initiate a collective action, the following four conditions need to be satisfied:
- there are two or more claimants or defendants;
- the subject of the cause of action for each party is the same, or is of the same kind;
- the court considers that such multi-party claims may be dealt with collectively; and
- the parties involved consent to such collective action.
If the number of litigants on one side of a collective action is large, these litigants may be represented by two or no more than five representatives. Pursuant to the SPC Interpretation on Civil Procedure:
- if there are more than ten litigants, that is considered large;
- if the litigants fail to select any representatives, the court may nominate representatives for the litigants or designate representatives at its discretion; and
- each of the representatives may be represented by one or two attorneys.
If the claimants or defendants under a collective action cannot be fixed at the time the case is filed, potential participants may join the action by registration as follows:
- the court may issue a public notice, specifying the circumstances of the case and notifying others with similar interests to register with the court;
- the People’s Court has discretion to determine the term of public notice on a case-by-case basis, although this term must not be less than 30 days;
- potential participants who seek to register with the court should demonstrate their legal relationship with the opposing party and the damages they have suffered. Those failing to do so would not be registered but could still file a separate lawsuit; and
- the court’s decision on the collective action will bind those who have registered with the court. Subject to the court’s interpretation, such decision may also apply to those litigants who do not register with the court but who bring similar claims within the statutory limitation period.