Abstract
In procedural law, we have recently witnessed remarkable tendencies. For a long time, not only in the Czech Republic, but also in the EU and many of its Member States, the emergence of a phenomenon that can be described as procedural protection of collective interests has been discussed more and more intensively.
In Europe, institutes that originate mainly from the American legal culture are implemented, such as class actions, public actions or derivative suits.The cause of this development are a number of new social phenomena. One of them is the existence of a consumer society and a consumer market dominated by specialized corporations on the one hand and a mass of inexperienced consumers on the other hand.
This situation is characterized by, among other things, information asymmetries.' This leads to the belief of a need for (mass) consumer protection as the weaker party. On a small scale, the losses of consumers might seem negligible.
On a mass scale, however, this means huge harm to consumers as a "class" and a significant "class" gain for entrepreneurs.