ROME—A consumer rights organization is seeking up to e6.25 billion ($8.95 billion) from two banks under a new class action law in Italy that some experts say lacks teeth to pose much of a threat to businesses.

The Rome-based consumer rights group Coordinamento delle Associazioni per la Difesa dell'Ambiente e dei Diritti degli Utenti e dei Consumatori, known as Codacons, said its class actions are the first to be brought under the legislation that went into effect Jan. 1.

The suits name UniCredit S.p.A. and Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A., accusing the banks of charging up to 25 million customers illegally high overdraft fees.

In a Jan. 2 statement, Codacons President Carlo Rienzi said each class member in the suits could be entitled to e250 ($358).

Codacons said it also has filed a class action against Voden Medical Instruments S.p.A., which makes H1N1 flu home testing kits the consumer group calls ineffective.

A spokeswoman for Intesa Sanpaolo would not comment on Codacons' charges. UniCredit and Voden Medical Instruments could not be reached.

The new law also has prompted another consumer group, Associazione per i Diritti degli Utenti e Consumatori, or Aduc, to take legal action against Microsoft Corp. The group said late last week that it planned to file a class action seeking reimbursement of the cost of Windows for consumers who bought computers with the operating system installed.

Despite the size of the suits against the banks, some say the revised law is weak and unlikely to greatly expand liability among Italian businesses.

“This law has many problems,” said Paolo Landi, secretary general of Associazione Difesa Consumatori e Ambiente, a 130,000-member Rome-based consumer group known as Adiconsum. “To start a class action is very risky.”

More plaintiffs

The law, which was approved as an amendment to Italy's budget, was meant to broaden the kinds of plaintiffs who could bring class actions in Italy. Under the previous system, only state-recognized consumer organizations were permitted to bring the suits.

Now, individual consumer groups can bring class actions in Italy.

However, Mr. Landi said, unlike the United States, Italy's law requires all plaintiffs in a class to have an “identical interest.” That means each plaintiff's losses and the reasons for those losses must be identical, he said.

“It is very difficult to find a problem with identical interests,” which he said could pose a problem for Codacons' suits against the banks unless all class members lost identical amounts in overdraft fees.

Bringing a class action also is risky, because a judge can refuse to allow a case and then levy fines against the parties filing the action. If a suit is allowed, the judge has the power to force the class to pay for publicity about the suit and who may participate, he said.

“This law created a lot of hope,” said Mr. Landi. “But how it was organized is not useful.”

Risk managers are not particularly worried about an expansion of liability under the revised law because it does not appear to allow “true class actions,” said Paolo Rubini, chairman of the Associazione Nazionale dei Risk Manager e Responsabili Assicurazioni Aziendali, Italy's Milan-based risk management association. The potential remedies against defendants do not seem to be particularly threatening, he said.

No punitives

Unlike laws in some other countries that allow punitive damages to be awarded in class-action lawsuits, the Italian law permits only compensatory awards.

Though he had not closely studied the legislation, Mr. Rubini, who also is director of risk management at Telecom Italia S.p.A. in Milan, said he doesn't expect it to have a significant effect on the insurance market.

“I don't think it will affect insurance prices,” Mr. Rubini said. “Liability insurance should not really be affected.”

Mr. Landi said Adiconsum had considered filing suit against an Italian telephone company that he said was applying inappropriate charges of e1 ($1.43) to consumers' bills each month.

“We had the identical interest,” Mr. Landi said, but the suit was scrapped when the group found language in the Italian law that exempts telephone companies from class action suits.