Wary Eye On Pending Class Action Rule Changes

Attorneys from Mayer Brown analyze a report from a Rule 23 subcommittee that was charged with considering possible revisions to the class action rules. The business community, they write, “should have serious concerns about the approach that at least some members of the subcommittee appear to be taking.” The subcommittee report is avowedly tentative and the process for making changes, if any, would stretch out until 2018, but according to the writers there are a number of things in this report that are problematic. The most worrisome, they say, has to do with a new type of certification, one that has the potential to garner so-called blackmail settlements.