← Back to context

Comment by BrenBarn

5 hours ago

As with most such things, though, what is needed are escalating penalties. If you're a Joe Schmo who files a complaint that turns out to be invalid, no penalty for you. If you're a rich jerk who files a bunch of such complaints, a few million maybe. If you're a giant company that is using the legal system to push people around, $50 billion.

Again, this is covered, to an extent. Speaking only for England & Wales, the courts have pretty broad costs powers. Especially if one party is bringing litigation unreasonably. There’s no ceiling to it either, it just has to be defensible.

It’s also on the court system to leverage procedure correctly to add safeguards against the kind of behaviour you describe.

I understand anecdotally the US system is more open to abuse of this nature, but I don’t know the details. This article though was specific to UK.