The Economist reports that class action lawsuits, a national pass time in the U.S., are coming to Europe.

Peter Watson, a partner with Allen & Overy, a law firm based in London, believes that businesses might cheer the arrival of class actions in Europe if they understood how they differ from the American sort. Indeed, some big firms have lobbied for class-action laws, to enable them to deal with a mass of similar claims in one fell swoop, rather than face thousands of separate lawsuits. In Germany, for example, legislators introduced class actions to help Deutsche Telekom to cope with 2,500-odd lawsuits brought by some 17,000 shareholders seeking damages for the collapse of its share price. Without the new law, litigation would have lasted an estimated 15 years.

I also recommend the article for a bit of background on class actions in the U.S. and how they have come to enjoy being fairly wide-spread.