Spain: A Litigation: Elite Overview

General Reforms: Mandatory ADR and Court Overhaul

Thus far in 2026, Civil litigation in Spain continues to be shaped by Organic Law 1/2025, which introduced mandatory alternative dispute resolution (ADR or MASC) as a prerequisite for most civil actions as well as reorganising the judicial structure. Although the reform aimed to encourage early settlement, it remains unclear whether it has produced any meaningful behavioural change. What is clear is that the mandatory MASC requirement has slowed the filing of new proceedings and generated significant interpretative uncertainty. Courts have issued guidance to clarify the scope and content of the admissibility requirement, but these efforts have resulted in divergent criteria across jurisdictions, a fragmentation that is likely to persist through 2026 (without prejudice to a challenge to the MASC mechanism currently before the Spanish Constitutional Court).

The second major reform under Organic Law 1/2025 – the move from roughly 3,800 single‑judge courts to 431 consolidated first‑instance courts – has also produced transitional challenges. While the objective is improved efficiency and greater specialisation, initial implementation has been uneven. Several regions report incomplete administrative staffing, delays in adapting court buildings to the new structure, and slow integration of case‑management systems. As a result, some districts continue to operate under a hybrid model, with old and new structures running in parallel. In many territories the reform has thus far been largely formal, with practical changes lagging. Nonetheless, practitioners expect that once full staffing and systems alignment are achieved, the new model should deliver the long‑term efficiency gains envisioned by the Spanish legislature.

Class Actions and Mass Claims: Urgent, but not Pressing

Spain’s transposition of the EU Representative Actions Directive (RAD) remains significantly overdue. Although the Directive required implementation by December 2022, Spain only took substantive steps with the Council of Ministers’ approval of a Draft Bill on Collective Actions on 25 February 2025. Earlier initiatives – including the 2022–2023 draft and an attempt to incorporate collective‑action rules into the 2024 Judicial Efficiency Law – stalled, leaving Spain exposed to potential infringement proceedings.

As of early 2026, parliamentary debate has been postponed nearly 40 times, and the bill referred for “urgent” processing has not advanced for over a year. The 2025 Draft Bill proposes key mechanisms such as an opt‑out model, standing for qualified entities, and oversight of third‑party funding, but the lack of progress means Spain still lags behind most member states, weakening collective redress and attracting continued EU scrutiny.

Unless Parliament amends the draft, Spain’s new collective‑action regime would introduce an unprecedented opt‑out system under which consumers are automatically bound by the outcome of collective proceedings unless they request exclusion. Some stakeholders continue to advocate for a full opt‑in model, leaving the final configuration uncertain. Judges would retain discretion to impose opt‑in mechanisms in specific categories of cases.

The Draft Bill also addresses third‑party funding, subjecting it to court scrutiny throughout the certification phase – the procedural gateway for collective litigation where courts assess the standing of representative entities, the homogeneity of claims, and other conditions for collective treatment. Only pre‑registered consumer associations would have standing to bring collective actions, and the bill would introduce broad disclosure powers, extending mechanisms currently limited to competition follow‑on damages claims.

Product Liability: AI as the New Frontier

The new EU Product Liability Directive (the "Directive"), in force since 8 December 2024 and awaiting national implementation in Spain (no draft implementation bill has been published so far), introduces substantial claimant‑friendly reforms. Key innovations include:

• an expanded concept of “product,” expressly encompassing software, and a broader definition of “damage,” including recognised psychological harm and loss or corruption of data;
• an enlarged pool of potentially liable actors across the supply chain;
• rebuttable presumptions of defect and causation to ease claimants’ evidentiary burden; and
• significant procedural changes, such as mandatory disclosure obligations and extended limitation periods for latent harm.

Disclosure obligations will become more robust. Under the Directive, failure to comply with a disclosure order will trigger a rebuttable presumption of defect, marking a substantial departure from traditional Spanish procedural doctrine, which generally allows only negative inferences rather than presumptions of liability.

Potential liability relating to AI systems will also acquire new relevance following Spain’s Anteproyecto de Ley para el Buen Uso y la Gobernanza de la Inteligencia Artificial, approved in first reading on 11 March 2025. The bill implements and supplements the EU AI Act and establishes a comprehensive governance framework, including banned AI practices, requirements for high‑risk systems, transparency obligations (notably for AI‑generated content), and a supervisory structure led by the Agencia Española de Supervisión de la Inteligencia Artificial (AESIA).

The bill empowers authorities to impose corrective measures – such as withdrawal or prohibition of AI systems – when AI causes a “serious incident,” and requires infringers to restore the prior situation and compensate for resulting harm. Because high‑risk AI systems must meet strict standards on data governance, human oversight, traceability, and documentation, failures in these areas may significantly influence findings of defect or causation under the future product‑liability framework.

ESG Litigation

ESG‑related litigation in Spain is expected to expand in 2026 as environmental groups increasingly use the courts to challenge industrial pollution and perceived regulatory inaction. Recent actions before the High Court of Justice of Asturias reflect this trend, with NGOs alleging that authorities permitted a major industrial facility to exceed emission limits. Similar challenges from NGOs are likely to focus on environmental permitting, administrative decision‑making, and corporate decarbonisation commitments, particularly as several high‑profile energy‑transition projects face more scrutiny. NGOs are likely to push for more judicial oversight to ensure that emissions‑reduction plans translate into enforceable outcomes.

The Council of Ministers has also approved the draft Sustainable Consumer Affairs Law to implement Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition and Directive (EU) 2024/1799 on repair rights. The draft introduces a ban on advertising short‑haul flights within mainland Spain if a less polluting alternative exists with a travel‑time difference under two and a half hours. It further prohibits advertising fossil fuels and vehicles powered exclusively by them (excluding gas), aiming to curb emissions. Additional measures that could bring civil and administrative litigation against target fear‑based advertising, greenwashing, shrinkflation, and promote repairability to combat planned obsolescence. Corporations infringing these wide-ranging provisions may face increased civil and administrative litigation as consumer platforms become more active and obtain further resources from litigation funders.

Antitrust Damages

Antitrust damages litigation continues to grow. The CJEU’s judgment in Nissan Iberia clarified that follow‑on actions based on a national competition authority’s decision are timely if filed within five years of the authority’s ruling becoming final after judicial review. The Spanish Supreme Court’s 2025 decisions in the so called “envelope cartel” cases reaffirmed that courts may estimate damages at 20% when neither party can credibly establish the counterfactual scenario.

Looking ahead, we can expect a rise in complex stand‑alone claims backed by third‑party funding, along with a continued uptick in actions initiated by public administrations and publicly owned entities, including major infrastructure operators.