Class or group settlement — are you inside the class definition?
SupranationalGLOBALRead off primary law
Any jurisdiction — class or group settlement eligibility
Rule id
collective.settlement-eligibility
Version
1.0.0
In force from
July 1, 1966
Last read against its sources
August 5, 2026
Countries bound
None listed — a treaty whose party states are set by accession
In plain language
What this regime says.
Whether a settlement covers you is decided by one sentence: the class definition. It names who, what and when, all three limbs must be satisfied, and the date limb has hard edges. This check compares your purchases against it and tells you whether the claim deadline has gone.
Who is covered
Anyone with a purchase to test. Class definitions are about transactions rather than residence, so a purchaser outside the forum country is sometimes inside the class.
What you get
A yes or no on membership, and a live-or-dead answer on the claim deadline. No figure: a class member's share is the fund divided by valid claims and is not knowable before the claims period closes.
Where claims go wrong
Working from a news summary of the class definition rather than the notice.
Assuming the deadline is flexible. It is not.
Assuming no receipt means no claim. Most settlements have a no-documentation tier.
Entering details on a lookalike settlement site.
Authority
Every citation, with its pinpoint.
A claim that cites “EU law” gets filed. A claim that cites Article 7(1)(c) gets answered. These are the exact coordinates this entry rests on.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 23Federal Rules of Civil ProcedureURL verified 2026-08-05Rule 23(a) prerequisites, Rule 23(b)(3) predominance and superiority, Rule 23(c)(2)(B) notice and the right to be excluded, Rule 23(e) settlement approval
Sources
Where a figure is indexed, converted or published by a regulator rather than fixed in the instrument, the provenance is recorded separately. Anything marked as a modelled estimate is exactly that — a model, not a statutory number.
A rule module builds these while it evaluates, because a limitation period depends on which forum is open to you. What follows is the structure this regime produces — deliberately with no dates and no figures, because those belong to your facts rather than to the law.
The clocks it starts
Claim deadline (from the notice)Fatal if missedFixed by the settlement agreement and approved by the court. Not extendable by the administrator. Give us the date and we will tell you exactly how long is left.Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 — Rule 23(a) prerequisites, Rule 23(b)(3) predominance and superiority, Rule 23(c)(2)(B) notice and the right to be excluded, Rule 23(e) settlement approvalFiling window
What it entitles you to, beyond money
Read the class definition, not the headlineThe single sentence beginning "All persons who..." is the test. News coverage and aggregator pages routinely drop the date limb or the product limb, which produces both false hope and false exclusion.Rule 23(a) prerequisites, Rule 23(b)(3) predominance and superiority, Rule 23(c)(2)(B) notice and the right to be excluded, Rule 23(e) settlement approval
File it yourself if you are inside itFree, on the administrator's own website, in minutes. Keep the confirmation number.
What the other side will say
Each of these is a refusal this regime lets a counterparty attempt, paired with the answer to it. Reading them before you write is worth more than any amount of polish on the letter itself.
"We can file your class-action claim for you — for a percentage"
high likelihood
A claims-filing service, a "settlement recovery" app or a law firm that is not class counsel contacts you offering to handle the claim, taking 15-40% of whatever arrives. Some buy the claim outright for a fraction of its value. Others harvest the personal data on the form.
What answers it
Filing is free, it is done on the administrator's own website, and it takes minutes. Class counsel are already paid out of the settlement — you do not retain anyone and you do not owe anyone a percentage. Several administrators now reject bulk third-party filings outright, and some settlement agreements void claims submitted by an aggregator, so using one can cost you the whole claim rather than a slice of it. The only address you should be entering your details into is the official settlement website named in the notice, which is also the only place that can tell you the real deadline.
"Up to $X" is read as an entitlement
high likelihood
The notice, the press coverage and the aggregators all quote the maximum per-claimant figure. It is read as an entitlement.
What answers it
"Up to" is a cap, not a promise. Almost every consumer settlement is a fixed fund divided among valid claims, so the per-claimant payment falls as the claims rate rises and is calculated only after the claims period closes, after the administrator validates claims, and after fees and costs come out. A settlement quoted at "up to $100" routinely pays single digits. That is not a reason to skip filing — the form is free and takes minutes — but it is a reason not to plan around the headline number.
Where to take it next
01Go to the settlement website named on the noticeIt carries the class definition, both deadlines, the claim form and the settlement agreement. Use the domain printed on the notice and no other.Collective action
02Run your individual claim in parallelSettlement participation and your own claim under the ordinary law are different things with different clocks. Unless you are already bound by a release, do not let one wait on the other.Claim direct·typically 30 days