Ius Omnibus v Stellantis/Fiat Chrysler Automobiles

Preparing an action of this type, in an appropriate way that allows success to be achieved, is extremely expensive, involving the hiring of lawyers and specialized consultants. The success of the action is dependent on adequately dealing with a broad and very technical factual matter and an extremely complex area of technical knowledge, as well as being able to react effectively to the large financial and human resources that will be deployed by the other side, which benefits from a profound information asymmetry.

The lack of financial resources of consumer protection associations is one of the main factors that explains why these legal mechanisms are almost never used. Indeed, as public funds are not available to finance popular actions of this kind for the time being (they may become available after one of these actions is won), it is impossible for an individual consumer or a consumer association to bear the costs of several hundreds of thousands of euros that are inevitably at stake in these actions.

The only way to be able to promote such an action is to obtain financing for the legal expenses necessary for the litigation. This practice, referred to as litigation funding, is already common practice in other Member States of the European Union and is now beginning to be used in Portugal. It was litigation funding that made it possible to organize an opt-out action to compensate consumers against Mastercard in the United Kingdom and several others since then. The Competition Appeal Court of the United Kingdom confirmed that the action would have been impossible without such financing and that, therefore, to refuse the possibility of such financing and the funder’s remuneration would be to refuse access to justice and the exercise of the rights in question.

The present action is financed by the Consumer Justice Network B.V., a funder composed of lawyers and litigation funders from the Netherlands and the United States of America, with proven experience in funding representative actions related to “dieselgate”.

The funder assumes all costs of litigation and takes all the risks. The funder will only recover its investment if the action is successful, only if and to the extent that the court authorizes it, and only if there is a sufficient amount left over from the global compensation after distribution to all consumers who request their share.

Under the above-mentioned conditions, Ius Omnibus committed to return to the funder the money invested, plus a fair remuneration for the risk and the during which its capital was unavailable, the proportionality of which will be controlled by the court. This funding scheme is based on the reality that there always tends to be a percentage of consumers who do not claim their share of the compensation.

The funding agreement guarantees the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism and transparency before the Court regarding the source of the funds. This funding mechanism guarantees that consumers will not have to bear any costs with the pursuit of this action, and that any consumer who asks for his/her share of the compensation at the end of the case will be entitled to 100% of his/her compensation.