17:42 Apr 28, 2011 

Thanks, I had actually wondered about this before.

17:38 Apr 28, 2011 

Thanks for all this useful information. I ended up doing what I should have done initially and found the text of the relevant directive(s) on line, and basically borrowed all their terminology. The EU goes for "collective redress" and "collective action" mostly, so I used those and then did my best with the few variants.

17:34 Apr 28, 2011 

This is very helpful and goes a long way toward addressing the asker's question "how many ways are there to say 'class action'.

06:32 Apr 28, 2011 

See this discussion of " Les différences entre l’action en représentation conjointe et la « class action » à la française": La deuxième partie de cet article reconnaît donc à la loi la possibilité d’habiliter un plaideur à défendre un intérêt déterminé par la loi. En effet, il existe, en droit français, et depuis l'adoption de la loi nº92-60 du 18 janvier 1992, une action permettant à un groupe de citoyens de se défendre par l'intermédiaire d'une association : l'action en représentation conjointe. Ref:http://www.oboulo.com/differences-action-representation-conj...

16:57 Apr 27, 2011 

In a document I found, lawyers are talking about 'class action', 'joined' and 'mass action':

"Thus, there is nothing paradoxical about a
savings clause that applies only when each of the 50 or more parties are named. SLUSA’s definition of “covered class action” defines a “class” broadly to preclude multi-party actions generally; the definition includes a single lawsuit on behalf of 50 or more persons (more commonly referred to as a “mass action”), and any group of consolidated or joined lawsuits on behalf of 50 or more persons."

This is at:

skadden.com/newsletters/DEMINGS.pdf

Not being a lawyer I couldn't guess with confidence. If no one comes up with an answer, I would call the info librarian at your local law school, or research in Black's Law Dictionary.

16:47 Apr 27, 2011 

I don't know how these sort out, but for example, in Texas where I live, court cases can be what is called "joined", which is distinct from "class action". I think this is the same for other states, but do not know any thing about other countries.

My understanding of the difference is, that joined means the facts pertaining to more than one party are similar enough that for practicality they can be heard together in one suit, but the ruling is only valid for parties to the lawsuit, where in a class action, the ruling applies to any one identified as in a certain defined class. That may be what they are referring to here.