INTRODUCTION

Arthur von Mehren's keen interest in and thorough understanding of the doctrine and practice of German civil procedure is evidenced, among his many other contributions, by his extensive study of German civil procedure in collaboration with Benjamin Kaplan and Rudolf Schaefer, and his seminal comparative work on the theory and practice of adjudicatory authority. Many of the rules, principles, and practices of the German civil process observed and analyzed by Arthur von Mehren and his coauthors in the 1950s, presented to American readers in a series of articles rightly labeled a “great English-language mini-treatise on German civil procedure,” are still in place today. The ways in which German courts are able to handle cases involving a large number of plaintiffs, however, are currently undergoing some potentially far-reaching changes. The recent enactment of the Act on Model Proceedings in Capital Market Disputes (Kapitalanleger-Musterverfahrensgesetz, hereinafter KapMuG or “the Act”) has introduced new means of collective litigation, albeit – at least for the time being – only in the limited field of securities litigation. Against the background of recent efforts in a number of jurisdictions in Europe and elsewhere to establish or improve procedural devices designed for mass litigation, the subject is of interest not only from a “merely” procedural perspective, but also from a comparative perspective. In this contribution, we try to shed some light on the particular path the German legislator has chosen in this field.