| Abstract: |
This article uses economic categories to show how the reorganisation of civil
procedure in the case of class action is not merely aimed at providing a more
efficient litigation technology, as hierarchies (and company law) might do for
other productive activities, but that it also serves to create a well defined
economic organization ultimately aimed at producing a set of goods, first and
foremost among which are justice and efficiency. Class action has the
potential to recreate, in the judicial domain, the same effects that
individual interests and motivations, governed by the perfect competition
paradigm, bring to the market. Moreover, through economic analysis it is
possible to rediscover not only the productive function of this legal
machinery, but also that partial compensation of victims and large profits for
the class counsel, far from being a side-effect, are actually a necessary
condition for reallocation of the costs and risks associated with the legal
action. |