There’s an upcoming, great looking conference December 10, 2010 conference on the globalization of collective litigation. The conference is at FIU in Miami.
The conference scope is broad, and includes sessions focused on Latin America and litigation financing. Details are set out below. The Latin American focus includes a strong contingent of lawyers. Panel 3 on litigation funding is unusual because of its focus on both public and private litigation funding, and other forms of targeted litigation. That’s a broader form of thinking about litigation funding, and obviously make sense. After all, consider the great results obtained by the ACLU’s beautifully planned and executed attack on gene patents that simply describe the layout of a gene. That success has now been followed by the US Department of Justice taking the same position, thus reversing years of prior thinking. Specifics on the entire conference are set out below; set out first is a description of panel 3 on litigation funding:
“The general theme is to illuminate different ways of funding mass claims, and identify the big problems and issues, and what is coming up in the future. As funding is a developing topic, we want to capture the trends and discuss different options, from the public financing of litigation to the use of legal aid board schemes, consumer associations and NGOs with reference to specific cases such as Dexia, law firm funding and also capture the general insurance perspective.”
Florida International University College of Law
Miami, Friday, December 10th, 2010
About the conference:
This conference, co-organized by professors Manuel A. Gomez (Florida International University College of Law) and Deborah R. Hensler (Stanford Law School), is the fourth in the series of international conferences on the global spread of collective litigation begun in 2007 at Oxford University. It will bring together academicians, policy analysts and legal practitioners to systematically review the status of collective litigation around the world with special focus on Latin America, a region signaled by a growing interest in protecting collective rights, the passage of legislation that provides for class actions and similar mechanisms, and the increased participation of domestic courts in deciding cases that involve large-scale accidents, environmental harms, exposure to toxic materials, defective products and financial injuries.
The conference will address issues of critical importance including financing, coordination and enforcement. It will also serve as a vehicle to exchange information about how the collective litigation rules work in practice, who is availing themselves of these procedures and for what ends, and what the economic and social consequences are for individuals, business, and the public interest.
The full agenda and registration information is available here. :
The conference will consist of four sessions. The two morning sessions will be devoted to Latin America. The two afternoon sessions will be devoted to funding issues (session 3) and general trans-national issues (session 4). Set out below is a brief description of each panel:
Panel 1: The protection of collective rights in Latin America
The general theme is to highlight how the protection of collective actions has evolved in the region, from the writ of Amparo and other court-devised mechanisms (e.g. estado de cosas inconstitucionales inColombia) to the enactment of special legislation geared to protect collective rights (consumer protection statutes, recent reform of the Ley de Reforma del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia de Venezuela, etc). Panelists will also address briefly the policy orientations in specific jurisdictions and what is coming up in the future.
Panel 2: Obstacles and incentives to collective litigation in Latin America
The general theme is to highlight different incentives and identify the big problems and issues affecting the development of collective actions in the region, and to discuss possible trends in light of the different reform efforts in different jurisdictions.
Panel 3: Funding Issues: Public versus Private Financing
The general theme is to illuminate different ways of funding mass claims, and identify the big problems and issues, and what is coming up in the future. As funding is a developing topic, we want to capture the trends and discuss different options, from the public financing of litigation to the use of legal aid board schemes, consumer associations and NGOs with reference to specific cases such as Dexia, law firm funding and also capture the general insurance perspective.
Panel 4: Trans-jurisdictional litigation, coordination and enforcement issues
This panel will focus on:
(1) What happens when class actions and other forms of group litigation procedures are thrown into the mix;
(2) How the growth of trans-national networks of private lawyers is affecting forum selection; and
(3) How the growth of trans-national litigation and especially collective litigation is affecting international commercial/investor arbitration practices and other forms of private "ADR."
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