INTRODUCTION

The chapters contributed to this volume reveal that although compensation funds are used for many different purposes, they face many of the same legal, procedural and equality challenges.

OPERATIONAL FIELD OF COMPENSATION FUNDS

Compensation funds crop up in response to a wide variety of misfortune. Throughout the different contributing countries, some remarkable similarities in the domains that compensation funds cover can be seen.

Examples can be found in most countries of compensation funds in the domain of traffic accidents. This is not surprising, however, since the second European Council Directive on motor vehicle insurance requires EU Member States to create a mechanism for compensating personal injury or damage to property caused by a vehicle that is unidentified or not insured.Therefore, these compensation funds share similar traits, especially in relation to the factual circumstances in which they will intervene.

Deposit guarantee funds have also emerged in the analysed jurisdictions, thanks to Directive 94/19/EC of the European Parliament and of the European Council of 30 May 1994 on deposit guarantee schemes.

Notwithstanding EU influence, traffic accident compensation funds and deposit guarantee funds in Member States in fact oft en pre-dated the relevant EU Directives.

A similar development exists for the compensation of crime victims. According to the Council of Europe's European Convention on the Compensation of Victims of Violent Crimes, victims of serious bodily injury or impairment of health directly attributable to an intentional crime of violence and the dependants of persons who have died as a result of such crime should be able to receive compensation. Not all Treaty Members have implemented this Convention in the same manner. In Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the UK, the compensation mechanism has taken the shape of a compensation fund.Spain on the other hand opted for public aid instead of a fund for the compensation of general crime damage. Terrorist damage on the other hand is regulated by a separate compensation fund in Spain.

Asbestos-related damage, which can be qualified both as occupational damage and industrial or environmental damage, has affected multiple European jurisdictions. Several countries have decided that compensation funds are best placed to cope with time bar issues, difficulties in proof of damage and other challenges in asbestos-related damage claims. This includes Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the UK.