Abstract
The opt-out class action involves a unique participant, viz, the absent class member whose claim is prosecuted by a representative claimant, who does not opt-out of the action nor do anything else in relation to it, and yet who is bound by its outcome. In a cross-border class action, the means by which a domestic court may validly assert personal jurisdiction over absent class members who are resident outside of that courtâs jurisdiction remains perhaps the single biggest conundrum in modern class actions jurisprudence. The United Kingdom (UK) legislature requires that non-resident class members compulsorily opt-in to the UKâs competition law class action, in order to demonstrably signify their consent to the jurisdiction of the UK court. However, that legislative enactment is unusual, and becoming even rarer, in modern class actions statutes. The comparative analysis undertaken in this article demonstrates that where that type of statutory provision is not enacted, then the judicially-developed âanchorsâ by which to assert personal jurisdiction over non-resident class members are multifarious, diverse, and conflicting, across the leading class actions jurisdictions. This landscape yields important lessons for UK law-makers, and strongly suggests that the UK legislatureâs approach towards non-resident class members represents âbest practiceâ, in what is a complex conundrum of class actions law.
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