Class Settlement Portal, Other Innovations Could Improve Payouts

Creating a government-run website to publicize and legitimize class settlements could go a long way towards increasing the amount of money that actually makes it into the hands of class members. That was the general consensus among speakers at a Federal Trade Commission workshop on how to improve claims rates in consumer class actions.

There has long been anecdotal evidence that consumer class actions often have claims rates under 10%. Now the FTC has backed that up with what Vanderbilt Law Professor Brian T. Fitzpatrick called “the best study of claims rates by far that has ever been done.”

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