ABSTRACT
Many Europeans view American legal and regulatory style with a mixture of amusement and horror. Class actions, multimillion-dollar punitive damage awards, ambulance chasing lawyers, and, more generally, adversarial, litigious relationships between regulators, regulated industries, and interest groups all appear as part of the fabric of American exceptionalism. While most Europeans may feel secure in their immunity to this ‘‘American disease,’’ there are increasingly strong indications that American-style adversarial legalism is emerging as an unwanted stepchild of European integration.
