Introduction
The Mass Damages Settlement in Collective Action Act (WAMCA) has been in force since 1 January 2020. The Act introduced a system in which claim foundations, acting on behalf of large groups of injured parties, can seek not only declaratory judgments but also monetary damages. More than 168 WAMCA decisions have now been handed down, spread across thirteen district courts and courts of appeal. This article analyses that case law and maps the most important patterns.
Although, under Section 1018b(3) DCCP, the Amsterdam District Court is the linchpin of the WAMCA system, the practice has by now become nationwide. The Hague District Court handles its own stream of collective actions against the State and international companies. The Central Netherlands District Court rules on mass medical damage and GDPR matters. The East Brabant and Rotterdam District Courts supplement the procedural law with employment-law collective claims and the questions for a preliminary ruling on the GDPR interaction. The courts of appeal of The Hague, Amsterdam and 's-Hertogenbosch have shaped the first contours of WAMCA appellate procedural law. Across all instances the patterns are recognisable: the admissibility test has become more intensive, litigation funding is scrutinised closely, and the transitional law continues to cause complications.
The first final judgments show a mixed picture. Greenwashing claims, revenge porn claims, animal welfare claims and the Bonaire climate case have been (partly) allowed. Product liability claims, energy claims and platform work claims have been dismissed. The WAMCA system works, but it is not an automatic route to damages.
The gateway to the WAMCA: who gets through?
The admissibility requirements are the first and often most contested hurdle in WAMCA proceedings. The assessment has been sharpened considerably over the years, and the emphasis shifts from court to court.
Representativeness is the most disputed requirement. In TPC/Oracle the Amsterdam District Court held that "likes" on a website do not suffice as declarations of support — a strict standard that was corrected on appeal. In TPC/Oracle on appeal the Amsterdam Court of Appeal considered that the Act sets no numerical criterion and that the assessment takes place ex nunc. Defects in the governance of a foundation can therefore be remedied. In the Nuon-Claim/Vattenfall proceedings, 9% actual registrations for a large group was sufficient. The Hague Court of Appeal refined the requirement for idealistic actions on behalf of vulnerable groups: in NJCM&Defence for Children/State the court held that quantitative representativeness is not decisive where children form the constituency — a certain constituency and actual activity suffice. In the most recent Google case (SBP&SMC/Google), representativeness was assessed for the first time on the basis of an auditor's report, the most extensive admissibility decision to date.
An important development is the application of the light regime of Section 3:305a(6) DCC. Organisations with an idealistic objective that do not claim monetary damages need not meet the heavier safeguard requirements of subsections 2 and 5. That regime has been applied in, among others, Fossielvrij/KLM, Dier&Recht/Raad van Beheer and FTV/AbbVie. Its scope is not unlimited, however: the Gelderland District Court held in Dierenrecht&Varkens In Nood/Gosschalk that animal welfare is an "interest attributable to persons", so that the full WAMCA regime applies — not the light regime.
The boundary of the admissibility gateway is being marked out ever more sharply. The Hague District Court held in Fair Huur/State that individual claimants will henceforth always be declared inadmissible in WAMCA proceedings. In FCIRS/Stellantis the North Holland District Court held that incorrect provision of information in the writ of summons is an independent ground for inadmissibility, with no possibility of cure. In the EU-Turkey deal case, the Hague District Court drew the line between political acts and judicially reviewable government action: a lack of clarity about the class and an insufficiently close connection with the Dutch legal sphere are independent grounds for inadmissibility. And the FTV/AbbVie final decision illustrates that even a party that clears all the WAMCA admissibility requirements may founder on the general interest requirement of Section 3:303 DCC: a "bare" declaratory judgment without a concrete remedy offers insufficient legal protection.
Money and power: litigation funding under scrutiny
The intensity of judicial review of litigation funding has increased sharply: from minimal attention in 2020-2021 to a searching assessment of specific contractual provisions in 2023-2025.
The starting point is now standardised: the funding agreement must be submitted to the court in full pursuant to Section 22 DCCP. Only the budget may be redacted in the version for the opposing party. In the TikTok funding case the court rejected the argument that the agreement was covered by legal professional privilege. Transparency towards the court has been the norm ever since.
The core question is control. The claim foundation must have full decision-making power over litigation strategy and settlements. Problematic provisions have been identified and struck out in the case law: restrictions on the free choice of lawyer, obligations to follow the funder's advice, and clauses preventing participants from switching to another foundation. In SDEJ&Car Claim/Mercedes, specific contractual provisions were assessed in detail for the first time. The ASC/Google decision offers the most extensive assessment, with explicit reference to the Claim Code standards.
The sharpest ruling came from the Hague Court of Appeal in SILC/Airbus. SILC was declared inadmissible because control in fact lay with the commercial law firm DRRT and the litigation funder Rightshare. The combination of deferred fees with a mark-up, a broad right to information for the funder, and a waterfall distribution turned SILC into a "vehicle" for entrepreneurial lawyering. The court used Principle II of the 2019 Claim Code — no profit motive for affiliated parties — as a tool of interpretation.
A range is emerging as regards the level of funding fee percentages. The usual range lies between 10% and 25%, with 27.5% in the SDEJ cases regarded as the upper limit. In the Essure/Bayer case the Central Netherlands District Court formulated a concrete guideline: where the funding fee percentage exceeds 25%, an enhanced burden of pleading rests on the representative organisation to substantiate its reasonableness. Perhaps the most norm-setting signal is the obiter dictum in the TikTok interim decision, in which the court formulated a maximum of five times the invested amount. That ceiling was repeated in the ASC/Google case. Although it is not (yet) a binding norm, it directly influences the litigation funding market.
The introduction of Section 3:305a(2)(f) DCC on 1 July 2023 — implementing the Representative Actions Directive — adds a new dimension. The funder may not be a competitor of, or dependent on, the defendant. The fact that a funder is also litigating against the same defendant elsewhere does not make the foundation dependent — so the court held in SBP/Google. The trend is clear: litigation funding is not being prohibited, but it is being regulated ever more tightly along the lines of control, transparency and proportionality.
The transitional law: two worlds side by side
The transitional law is one of the most technical but also most consequential themes in WAMCA case law. The reference date of 15 November 2016 is crucial. Damage-causing events before that date fall under Section 3:305a DCC (old), under which no monetary damages can be claimed, no exclusive representative is designated, and no opt-out arrangement applies.
The first systematic exposition came from the Amsterdam Court of Appeal in FNV/Helpling, in which the distinction between substantive and procedural transitional law was worked out on two levels. Four approaches have since become visible.
The first is the "initial event" approach, applied above all in diesel emissions cases. In SDEJ/Volkswagen on appeal the court held that the "placing of vehicles on the market in the Netherlands" is the relevant event — not the development of the manipulation software. In SEC,SCC,SDEJ/Renault the court qualified the development of the manipulation instrument as the overarching event.
The second is the split regime for continuing torts. In Nuon-Claim/Vattenfall the court held that the group also affected after 15 November 2016 falls under the WAMCA, and the rest under the old law — the so-called Van Gent amendment. The same system applies in BCW/Allergan.
The third is the "continuing infringement" approach, which arises above all in a competition law context. In ASC/Google the single and continuous infringement was used as the basis for declaring the WAMCA applicable to the entire period. That is fundamentally different from the diesel emissions line, where a split is made per engine type and emission standard.
The fourth is the "series of events" approach. In the Essure/Bayer case the Central Netherlands District Court held that a series of damage-causing events — design, production, distribution — renders the WAMCA temporally applicable without the need for a strict cut-off against the old law. The East Brabant District Court applied the same logic in SDW/water companies in the case of continuing groundwater extraction.
Which approach applies depends on the type of wrongfulness: in competition law the continuity principle prevails, in product liability the initial event, and in mass personal injury and environmental damage the series or the continuation. The consequences are far-reaching. Under the old law, no monetary damages can be claimed. For claim foundations, the difference between old and new law can be the difference between a principled declaratory judgment and proceedings that actually lead to payment to individual injured parties. The Supreme Court clarified in Clara Wichmann/State and CCC/Apple that Section 1018c DCCP does not apply on appeal and in cassation.
Privacy and the WAMCA: waiting on Luxembourg
The interaction between the GDPR and the WAMCA is the central unresolved legal question in the current WAMCA landscape. The debate turns on one core question: must a claim foundation have a mandate from individual data subjects in order to be able to claim damages under Article 82 GDPR?
Article 80 GDPR sets independent admissibility requirements alongside the WAMCA requirements, leading to a double test. The TikTok interim decision offers the first extensive treatment of that relationship: the court held that the WAMCA opt-out also applies to GDPR claims, and that the Dutch legislature, through Section 37 UAVG, deliberately chose to make collective damages claims possible for GDPR infringements. In TPC/Oracle on appeal the court located the mandate requirement at the stage of whether the claim can be allowed rather than at admissibility — a material difference — and held that punitive damages are not possible under the GDPR. In DPS/Facebook, Article 80(2) GDPR was recognised as an independent basis.
The answer now lies with the Court of Justice of the EU. The Rotterdam District Court referred questions for a preliminary ruling in the SDBN/Amazon case: does the GDPR have its own autonomous admission threshold that displaces the WAMCA requirements, and can a representative organisation claim damages under Article 80(2) GDPR without an individual mandate? That referral has direct consequences: in the parallel SDBN/Adobe case, the same organisation turned out to meet the GDPR requirements but not the WAMCA requirements at the same time — an illustration of the tension that the CJEU must resolve. Several proceedings have been stayed pending the outcome, including the Google and Apple cases at the Amsterdam District Court. Increasingly, a split is applied: non-GDPR claims proceed while GDPR claims are stayed.
A warning signal for commercial parties came from Gokverliesterug/Kindred, in which a limited partnership with a profit motive foundered on Article 80(1) GDPR. That confirms that the GDPR imposes stricter requirements on the capacity of the claimant than the WAMCA alone.
The diesel emissions scandal as a testing ground
The diesel emissions cases against Volkswagen, Mercedes, Renault and Stellantis form the most mature WAMCA practice. Because of their scale and complexity they serve as a testing ground for WAMCA procedural law.
A recurring theme is international jurisdiction. The anchor defendant construction of Article 8(1) Brussels I-bis is applied broadly: in SDEJ/Volkswagen on appeal the court held that the Dutch importer can serve as an anchor defendant for claims against the German parent company. But there are limits: in SDEJ/Stellantis on appeal jurisdiction was declined for injured parties who bought their vehicle elsewhere in the EU. The consumer forum of Articles 17-18 Brussels I-bis is not available to claim foundations, as was confirmed in the Apple case. In the SILC/Airbus case the Hague Court of Appeal nuanced the anchor defendant construction with regard to individual directors: board members can be reached via Article 8, but CFOs who did not work from the Netherlands cannot.
The transitional law causes particular complications in diesel emissions cases, because the manipulation software was generally developed well before 15 November 2016 but the vehicles were sometimes placed on the market only afterwards. In the Stellantis case (SEC,SCC,SDEJ/Stellantis) the transitional law was consolidated with a detailed split per engine type and emission standard.
At the most recent stage, the information orders are striking. In SEC,Car Claim,SDEJ/Renault the court issued the most detailed Section 22 DCCP order to date: for each engine type and type approval, information must be provided about manipulation instruments. In the Mercedes case (SDEJ&Car Claim/Mercedes) a confidentiality regime was imposed under Section 28 DCCP with a penalty of €1,000,000. Trade secrets are not a ground for refusing to provide information, but the evidence is protected via a confidentiality regime.
The judge as case manager
Over the past five years, a procedural law of its own has emerged for WAMCA cases. The patterns are now recognisable, both at first instance and on appeal.
Phased handling is the standard. First jurisdiction is assessed, then admissibility, then the designation of the exclusive representative, then the opt-out arrangement, and finally the substantive treatment. In complex cases a case management judge is appointed. That structure offers predictability, but also leads to long lead times.
The system of the exclusive representative is functioning. Where there is a single claimant, the designation is generally unproblematic. The TikTok case is the first in which two exclusive representatives were designated: STBYP for minors and SMC for adults. The Central Netherlands District Court went further in the NZa/GGZ case: three foundations were jointly designated for an idealistic claim against a government body. In SDEJ/Volkswagen the court held that the WAMCA system is closed on the claimant side: joinder under Section 217 DCCP is incompatible with the system. The Supreme Court confirmed that asymmetry in Milieu en Mens/Shell: joinder on the defendant side is possible, on the claimant side it is not.
The opt-out arrangement has acquired its own dynamic. The standard is opt-out for Dutch interested parties and opt-in for foreign ones. In the FNV&CNV/Temper case, Section 1018f(1), last sentence, DCCP was applied for the first time: with 25% opt-outs, the proceedings were partially terminated. The innovation lies in the differentiation: the individual damages claims were terminated, but the idealistic claims proceeded. In BCW/Allergan the opt-out for the foreign group was rejected on account of insufficient identifiability.
On appeal, the procedural architecture has by now been shaped by the Hague Court of Appeal. In appellant/State (MTV) — the first appellate decision on WAMCA preliminary questions on appeal — it was established that the admissibility test need not be carried out again in full, that the exclusive representative is designated anew (logically the same one), and that the three-month period of Section 1018c(3) DCCP does not apply because new influx is no longer possible. In SMC/Airbnb the same court added that the registration obligation in the central register likewise does not apply to the notice of appeal.
The courts of appeal show divergence on some points. In the Volkswagen assignment cases, the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Court of Appeal held in VGDES/Volkswagen that a claim foundation has an "interest worthy of protection" in gathering divergent decisions as a negotiating basis. The 's-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal reached the opposite outcome in VGDES/Volkswagen: the assignor had already monetised its claim, so that concentration at a single court of appeal is required. That divergence between the courts of appeal on the permissibility of dispersed litigation has not yet crystallised.
A growing phenomenon is the staying of proceedings pending questions for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU. Interlocutory appeal is sometimes allowed for jurisdiction decisions, sometimes refused. Referral back to the district court after reversal on appeal is applied regularly, as in the TPC/Oracle and SEC/Mercedes cases.
First final judgments: what does the WAMCA deliver?
After five years of the WAMCA, a first stock-taking is possible. The substantive final decisions show a mixed picture, and the question of which types of claim succeed is more relevant than the absolute number.
On the side of the claims that were allowed stand the greenwashing case Fossielvrij/KLM, the revenge porn case SOS/vagina.nl and the animal welfare case Dier&Recht/Raad van Beheer. The Greenpeace/State (Bonaire) decision of the Hague District Court adds a new dimension to this: the first Dutch application of the ECtHR's KlimaSeniorinnen framework in a collective action. The court held that the State breached its positive obligations under Articles 8 and 14 ECHR in relation to the inhabitants of Bonaire. The unequal treatment of the BES islands compared with the European Netherlands constitutes an independent breach of the Convention.
On the side of the dismissed claims, it is striking that the reasons vary widely. In the breast implants case BCW/Allergan the claim foundered on the merits of product liability. In the NZa/GGZ case (DBC-Vrije Praktijken/NZa) the data supplied turned out not to be personal data. In the STT/Triodos Bank case, the closure of the trading system was provided for in the prospectus terms. In the Elco Foundation/Rabobank case, suitability for bundling proved unattainable for financial benchmarks. And in the platform work case Temper, the proceedings were partially terminated on account of the high opt-out percentage. The pattern is that the WAMCA works as a procedure, but the substantive thresholds differ considerably per area of law.
The bundleability criterion turns out to be the most important substantive dividing line. In the case of uniform torts — diesel emissions, privacy infringements, greenwashing — bundleability is almost always assumed. Where interests are heterogeneous, the position is different: in the PFAS case the Hague District Court held that claims with substantially divergent constituencies, factual bases and legal questions cannot be bundled in a collective action. The East Brabant District Court confirmed in SDW/water companies that the WAMCA can also be used for statutory liability for lawful conduct — the basis need not be tort. With contractual claims the position is fundamentally different: if the assessment requires each individual agreement to be interpreted by reference to the Haviltex standard, the collective treatment falls apart. That was precisely the issue in SMC/ABN AMRO. A fundamental reversal came from the Amsterdam Court of Appeal in TikTok on appeal: the district court had held that non-material damages claims for privacy infringements were not suitable for bundling; the court of appeal reversed that ruling and did assume bundleability. Moreover, the court held that a narrowly defined group in the case of continuing wrongful conduct may not be delimited temporally.
The Essure/Bayer case at the Central Netherlands District Court confirmed that non-material damage can be claimed collectively and that subjective joinder of collective and individual claims is permitted — a practical point for mass personal injury proceedings.
What does this mean for practice?
After five years, the WAMCA case law shows a system that works, but that is considerably more complex than the legislature presumably envisaged. The admissibility test is not a formality but a substantial hurdle, especially now that litigation funding is scrutinised closely and the control requirements are being fleshed out ever more concretely. The transitional law leads to split regimes that complicate proceedings. And the central question of the GDPR interaction awaits an answer from Luxembourg that will influence the entire privacy mass-damage practice.
For defendants, the case law offers footholds for mounting a defence on several fronts: representativeness, bundleability, transitional law, litigation funding and jurisdiction have all proved effective lines of defence. For claim foundations, governance and transparency weigh ever more heavily, and the court is prepared to correct problematic funding constructions but not to ignore them. The light regime of Section 3:305a(6) DCC offers idealistic organisations a less burdensome route in, but they too must offer concrete legal protection — a pure declaratory judgment without a remedy does not suffice.
The diesel emissions cases illustrate where the system is heading: detailed information orders, confidentiality regimes with high penalties, and a court that actively steers towards information symmetry. The Bonaire climate case shows that the WAMCA can also serve as an instrument for ECHR review of government policy. The drought damage case shows that even statutory liability for lawful conduct can be claimed collectively. The answer to the question whether the WAMCA "works" depends on the perspective. As an instrument for collective legal protection, the system has proved effective. As a vehicle for large-scale damages, the counter is modest so far. The coming years will determine in which direction the balance tips.
This article is based on an analysis of 168 WAMCA decisions with full text, from thirteen district courts and courts of appeal — from SOS/defendant (revenge porn) of April 2020 to Greenpeace/State (Bonaire) of January 2026. All decisions can be consulted directly via the hyperlinks in the text.
Further references: ECLI:NL:HR:2020:587 (UVDTAB/Trafigura), ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2020:2842 (SOS/defendant), ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2022:3586 (SDEJ,Car Claim,SEC/Mercedes), ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2022:4035 (FNV&CNV/Temper admissibility), ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2023:5310 (RCJ,CCC,ASC/Apple), ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2024:3708 (SEC,SCC,SDEJ/Renault Section 22 DCCP), ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2024:4264 (ICAM/State GGD data breach), ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2025:1859 (ASC/Google), ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2025:2936 (Salesforce/cookies), ECLI:NL:GHAMS:2024:2661 (TPC/Oracle referral back), ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2023:14036 (SILC&AIRS/Airbus), ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2024:14834 (Greenpeace/State Bonaire admissibility), ECLI:NL:RBOBR:2022:1995 (FNV&CNV/XPO pension), ECLI:NL:RBNHO:2025:4867 (CCC&STEP/LG connexity), ECLI:NL:RBNNE:2021:5247 (VGDES/Volkswagen stay), ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2024:6874 (SEC,SCC,SDEJ/Renault burden of pleading), ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2025:9010 (Amnesty/State EU-Turkey deal), ECLI:NL:SDBN/X Corp