Five years after its enactment, the Dutch class action act "WAMCA" has been evaluated. The report was published on 19 November 2025. In this blog, we set out the main conclusions and recommendations.

The WAMCA has introduced the option of collective damages redress and introduced a two-stage procedure in which proceedings on the merits follow a decision on admissibility of the claim and standing of the claim vehicle.

The evaluation committee concludes that there is wide support for the possibility to claim damages in collective actions. Furthermore, the two-stage procedure as such is not challenged, but it is widely considered that it takes very long to come to a final resolution. As a result thereof, no single case has made it to collective damages redress under the WAMCA.

While the committee does not propose to change the admissibility requirements as such, it does make recommendations to streamline the first stage of the procedure. The committee distinguishes between actions with an idealistic purpose and collective damages claims. For idealistic collective actions, the committee recommends granting the courts more flexibility to skip certain steps to speed up proceedings.

We highlight a few of the recommendations for improvement, clarification, and acceleration.

In general, the committee advises the legislator to, amongst others:

• Give the courts more flexibility in directing the parties towards a settlement attempt.
• Consider introducing a dual track system for determining standing of claim vehicles, so that for "repeat players" only the admissibility criteria that are relevant for the specific action that is brought have to be tested.
• Specifically for idealistic actions, the committee recommends the legislator to:
• Provide clarity on the possibilities for appeal and cassation.
• Consider giving courts the option of appointing an amicus curiae in WAMCA proceedings, so that experts in the field of collective redress can contribute to an adequate settlement.

Specifically for idealistic actions, the committee recommends the legislator to:

• Consider giving the courts the discretion to waive the statutory 3/6 month waiting period after a claim is registered, if it is unlikely that another claim vehicle will register a similar claim.
• Clarify whether it should be possible to assess certain incidental claims before the statutory waiting period has expired.
• Give the courts the discretion not to determine a narrowly defined group when this is impossible due to the represented group being diffuse and undefined.
• Give the courts the discretionary power to skip the opt-out phase in case of certain actions that are initiated in the public interest and an individual cannot opt-out of the outcome.
• Introduce a qualitative test to determine whether claim vehicles that initiate idealistic WAMCA proceedings sufficiently represent the general public.

General elections were recently held in the Netherlands and a new coalition government is currently being formed. It remains to be seen if and how the evaluation committee's findings will be followed-up.

The summary of the report (in Dutch) is published here and the full report here.