Developments in Private Enforcement of Italian Antitrust Law: The Introduction of Class Action Legislation

As from January 1, 2010, a new procedural tool for the protection of consumers, the class action, is now available in the Italian legal system. Class actions constitute a new instrument consumers can rely on for the safeguard of certain individual rights already enforceable with individual lawsuits before courts. Thus, class actions are an alternative, rather than a substitute, to the existing judicial remedies available to consumers, which are by no means affec